Mark,
Maybe my choice of terms could be better. I am not disagreeing with either your or the previous response that stated the conditions could be representative of "accidents" that normally occur.
Let me see if I can clarify by citing a specific example. My bins sit various places depending if they are seeing regular use or if they are "in storage". I use different bins at different times of the year and for different applications. To simplify things though lets take my Sightron Blue Sky SII 8x32s as an example. As I type this they are sitting out on the back floor of my car. They are going to sit there all day while I am here at work. Temp right now, according to Weatherbug, is 56 F. It might get up to the low 70s F later today.
After work I will probably stop at one or two birding spots to check for some of the Warblers that have been passing through the area lately. I will take them out of the car and either scan from some parking lots or take a brief walk with the bins attached to the neckstrap and around my neck.
Later in the day when I get home I will probably have them sitting out on a table on the back patio in either full shade or full sun. They will probably sit there until it is time to pack it in for the evening. Tomorrow they will be back in my car again for another round of the same schedule.
Temps are fluctuating throughout the day but not to the extent of a freezer or an oven.
I didn't/don't plan to drop them either. I have dropped them once though. It was a day last year when Stet and I met at a local high school so I could check out his 6.5x32 Vortex Furys. I, of course, became immediately concerned because I have had mixed results from dropping binoculars. In that particular situation the worst that happened was a small nick in the rubber armor around the rim of the objective. Collimation was still spot on, no problems with mechanics or optical performance. The drop was from the seat of my car (about 3 feet) down to a macadam (spelling?) parking lot surface.
I have dropped plenty of other binoculars in my time. Several immediately come to mind. Here is a list and the subsequent results...
Zeiss Conquest ABK 8x40 - Dropped from the back of my pickup to a dirt/gravel surface on a road shoulder. Optics were fine but the focusing knob snapped off the focusing rod. I had to ship them to Zeiss's Virginia facility and they had to ship them off to Germany. Two months and $220 later I had the bins back in new condition with a nice Zeiss hat and lens cleaning kit. Not covered under warranty since the Zeiss warranty on those bins only covered manufacturing defects and not user damage.
Nikon Action Extreme 7x35 - Dropped from an elevated deck, at my old house, down about 15 feet to grass/dirt. Binoculars out of collimation but with no exterior damage. Shipped to Nikon and repaired for the $25 to cover shipping via their No-Fault warranty.
Zen Ray 7x43 - Dropped, actually by Charles, onto a macadam surface from about 5 feet. No damage internally or externally. Eyecups were fully collapsed at the time.
Pentax DCF SP 8x32 - Dropped from a pool deck and then bounced into a swimming pool. Rubber eyecup had a small "split" right around the edge of the rim. Eyecup worked perfectly with no change to collimation or overall performance. Contacted Pentax and they shipped me out a new eyecups that I replaced on my own...free of charge.
Nikon E II 8x30 - Dropped from a table onto a carpeted floor. Out of collimation but no damage externally. Sent to Nikon and repaired under their No-fault warranty for $24.95.
Vortex Razor (original open-bridge version) - Dropped from the hood of my car onto the shoulder of the road (dirt/gravel again). Slightly out of collimation and the focusing knob became much more difficult to turn. Returned to Vortex who promptly shipped me out a new one with a two week turn around - fully covered under the warranty.
That is all I can remember at the moment. There may have been one or two more. So, as you can see, I do agree that a drop-test is valid in that it does occasionally happen. How often it happens is debatable.
As for waterproofing, here is a video I uploaded to my flickr account last summer. This is what I "expect" waterproofing to be in a binocular...regardless of what a manufacturer posts on their website. I think it roughly correlates with exposure to rainy or snow conditions...at least what I typically put a binocular through.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73029961@N07/7376330860/in/photostream
So, as I mentioned, I am not disputing that binoculars aren't used or exposed to these types of conditions but I would not term those conditions "regular use".
On a related note, this may also be a good point to mention warranty and/or customer service. Neither has anything to do with durability but it is certainly reassuring to purchase a product from a company that has good customer service and a full-proof warranty should exposure to such conditions result in an unusuable binocular.
Personally I don't find the test conditions "extreme."
-22 C = -7.6 F. I'm quite certain I've used binoculars at that temp, and for long enough periods of time for the bino to equalize with the ambient temp. I don't remember the details, though. I was probably anxious to get back inside.
60 C = 140 F, and that's a typical summertime, closed vehicle temp. I try never to leave optics in that situation, but it probably happens.
If a manufacturer claims 500 cm waterproof, then 50 cm should be smooth sailing, right?
The drop test is problematic, however. No clear science here. The closest you could do would be to drop something
on the binoculars, not the other way around. Still, eliminating chance and sample variation would be daunting. Not to mention that in real-world accidents you couldn't repeat the results if you tried.
Personally, I wouldn't decide on a binocular purchase based on these results. But I wouldn't say they're useless either. I found it rather interesting.
I have a Zeiss, 2 Swaros, a Leica, and a Zen. Has this test changed my mind about any of them? Not so much.
Mark
