non-perfect Monovid: What would you do? (1 Viewer)

Hello all,

I very recently bought a Leica Monovid 8x20, and noticed what seems like a small coating defect inside the device. The pictures below were taken through the front lens.

Would you be bothered by that, or would you ignore it, because it probably doesn't affect the optical performance?

Hi,

this looks like a bubble to me and should not have passed Leica QC.

Even if you don't see it in normal use it might cause diffraction at night or with frontal illumination.

Plus it will make a resale quite difficult...

Joachim

Hello Joachim,

thank you so much for your reply. Sometimes I'm unsure whether I'm overly pedeantic. However, the diminished resale value seems like a very valid consideration to me, and I didn't think of that.

I'm still solidly inside the return window (Widerrufsfrist), and not yet sure whether to exchange this specimen for another one. I guess I'll ask Leica's after-sales service what they think about that defect. If they deny there's a problem, I'll return it for good.

Out of curiosity, I thought it was a coating defect, because to the naked eye, it looks like a bright reflection only visible when the light comes from a certain angle. Do you still think it could be a bubble with this additional information?

It could be a coating defect caused by a speck of dirt.
A small bubble looks like a bubble with a small eyeglass.
Tiny bubbles are allowable. It depends how small.
A small coating defect centrally also not very important although eventually could cause some problems.

Binastro said:

Tiny bubbles are allowable. [...]
A small coating defect centrally also not very important

Click to expand...

Hello Binastro,

you may be correct with all of this, and yet I think that Joachim's reasoning is infallible: Even if the defect is "allowable" and "not very important", it will cause a significantly lower resale value of the item.

True.

Hi,

if the defect is easily seen with the naked eye, it is in my opinion not allowable for an instrument bought at full price. I have a Pentax 8x32 ED which had some easily visible coating defect when I got it, but way less than what is shown above.
In that case I decided to keep it since it was a heavily discounted demo (or probably return) unit (list price was 900€ or so, street price around 500€ and I got that demo in a firesale after Pentax discontinued the model at 230€ or so) - since those sold out quickly, I only could have been refunded and I decided even with the blemish it was a good bad weather / loaner pair.

Interestingly enough, a good part of the problem was dirt - after the first good clean (which took some time as I tend to clean very sparingly) I really have to look hard for it...

Joachim