doug el10x32
Well-known member
15x50 IS Rain Guards, Eyepiece Caps and Eyepiece Cups
Hi,
I have now had a chance to use my 15x50 IS binoculars for about two months. Much has been written about the optics and the IS (which are both great) so I will make a couple of comments concerning the eye caps and rubber roll down eye cups.
The supplied eye caps are unuseable in the field and coincidently, the rain guard supplied with the Canon 10x42L's fits perfectly and due to the design, it will fit whether the eye cups are up or rolled down. I was able to order a replacement rain guard that I now use on the 15x50's.
It might be just my eyes but I found that the eye cups were very uncomfortable to use. Too wide and the 'ring' on the end did not permit proper eye to eyepiece alignment. Also, the width of the eye cups held them further from my eye pupils and prevented me from being able to see the entire field of view due to the 15 mm eye relief. Rolling down the cups is not an option as your eye is then too close to the eyepiece lenses. Using an old pair of broken binoculars, I experimented with cutting off the edges of the eye cups !! Because the 'rings' on the end of the Canon eye cups are so distinctive, they actually serve as a cutting guide and using small curved nail scissors, I was able to remove both rings and none of the rest of the eye cups. You basically end up with cutting off the two 'O' rings and no more. You have to go slow and not stop so that the cut is relatively 'smooth'. It was a very difficult decision to make but the result is a full field of view and a much more comfortable eye to eye cup placement. Because the wall of the eye cups is now more flexible with the loss of the 'rings', it is much easier to more comfortably fine tune the eye pupil and exit pupil line up that is so critical with the 15x50's and 18x50's.
The new rain guard still works and without the 'rings' on the end of the eyepiece cups, the binoculars actually look a lot better. This process would work with the 18x50's as will the rain guard from the 10x42L's that will also fit.
I hope this may help those having difficulty with comfort, eye relief, field of view and rainguards for these larger Canon binoculars.
Just a word of warning: It would be very easy to make a mistake when cutting off the 'rings' and the eye cups cannot be removed and replaced very easily. A mistake is therefore pretty irreversible.
Doug..........
Hi,
I have now had a chance to use my 15x50 IS binoculars for about two months. Much has been written about the optics and the IS (which are both great) so I will make a couple of comments concerning the eye caps and rubber roll down eye cups.
The supplied eye caps are unuseable in the field and coincidently, the rain guard supplied with the Canon 10x42L's fits perfectly and due to the design, it will fit whether the eye cups are up or rolled down. I was able to order a replacement rain guard that I now use on the 15x50's.
It might be just my eyes but I found that the eye cups were very uncomfortable to use. Too wide and the 'ring' on the end did not permit proper eye to eyepiece alignment. Also, the width of the eye cups held them further from my eye pupils and prevented me from being able to see the entire field of view due to the 15 mm eye relief. Rolling down the cups is not an option as your eye is then too close to the eyepiece lenses. Using an old pair of broken binoculars, I experimented with cutting off the edges of the eye cups !! Because the 'rings' on the end of the Canon eye cups are so distinctive, they actually serve as a cutting guide and using small curved nail scissors, I was able to remove both rings and none of the rest of the eye cups. You basically end up with cutting off the two 'O' rings and no more. You have to go slow and not stop so that the cut is relatively 'smooth'. It was a very difficult decision to make but the result is a full field of view and a much more comfortable eye to eye cup placement. Because the wall of the eye cups is now more flexible with the loss of the 'rings', it is much easier to more comfortably fine tune the eye pupil and exit pupil line up that is so critical with the 15x50's and 18x50's.
The new rain guard still works and without the 'rings' on the end of the eyepiece cups, the binoculars actually look a lot better. This process would work with the 18x50's as will the rain guard from the 10x42L's that will also fit.
I hope this may help those having difficulty with comfort, eye relief, field of view and rainguards for these larger Canon binoculars.
Just a word of warning: It would be very easy to make a mistake when cutting off the 'rings' and the eye cups cannot be removed and replaced very easily. A mistake is therefore pretty irreversible.
Doug..........
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