BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="brocknroller" data-source="post: 3242139" data-attributes="member: 665">Three reports on armoring/skin interactions....The first is regarding what happened the eyecups on my Nikon 8x32 LX/HG. After using them for over a year, I started noticing bubbles appearing on the rubber eyecups (the HG/HGL's have two components - a metal frame covered by a rubber cup). The bubbles were only in areas of the rubber eyecups that came in direct contact with my skin, not the top which protrudes into my eye orbits, or the bottom which is away from my face. They were also discolored in those body contact areas. I'm not diabetic but I do suffer from acid reflux if that counts! I never discovered what caused this premature decrepitude, but looking at other LXs for sale on the 'bay, some have eyecups with a similar discolored, bubbly appearance. The second case is from my brief (two week) encounter with the Nikon 10x42 HGL. Within two days of light handling, the softer (than the HG), brown armoring started showing blotches. By brushing the armoring in one direction with a cloth I could minimize the appearance of blotching. I started washing my hands and I did not use sunblock (I don't think I bought them in the summer), yet they still continued to show more wear with each use! I could only imagine what these would have looked two years later. I've seen some well used HGLs for sale online, and the armoring shows the same blotchiness in the areas where you hands/fingers hold the bin, which are discolored, but much worse than my sample. I was able to restore the armoring at least to the point where they didn't look they were two years old though they looked older than two weeks, and I managed to sell them for what I paid ($1,000), which is the most I ever paid for a bin (my limit is usually around $500-$600). At the time, the 10x42 HGL, which had been out for less than a year, sold for $1,400 retail. While you can expect armoring to wear with continued use over a period of years, these two incidents were unexpected and showed that whoever designed the rubber armoring for the eyecups on the HG and the body armoring on the HGL didn't do a thorough testing before allowing them to go into production. Then there's the flimsy rubber covering on the grey body Nikon EIIs, which was an ill-conceived design. When it's humid and hot, the heat from your hands causes the coverings to bubble, and some have reported that the covering on their samples peeled off. The armoring on the newer black body EIIs don't need babying or maintenance the way the grey body models do. So at least Nikon addressed the issue, though it took them long enough. Still great optics for the price, worth putting up with having to repair the armoring after exposure to heat/humidity if you see a sweet deal on a grey body EII. Brock</blockquote>

Verification