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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CLRobles" data-source="post: 1511700" data-attributes="member: 76360">SE's and CTC's in the rain....I have owned and used both Swarovski's CTC-85 and CTC-75 for somewhere around 20 years. I do love the ST's but I feel they are not as portable as the CTC's for me. I stopped using the CTC-85 early on and have been using the CTC-75 with the fixed 30 wide angle eye piece forever now. I just love the scope! Pop on the end caps, throw the strap around your shoulder and away you go. Now, both the CTC-85 and 75 were made at one time with a bayonet type attachment for the eye piece and one could have either the fixed 30W or their 20-60 variable. I have never really had much use for more than a 30, maybe 40 to 45 power max but the 30 wide angle does it for me! I used the old style CTC for 10 years+ and loved it but finally broke down a few years back and bought the newer CTC-75 with the updated armor and swarodur and swarobright coatings. Now to be perfectly honest with you, other than it looks newer and fresher, I'm not sure I see a big difference in the optics between the new and old CTC? I am sure the newer HD/ED glassed scopes with the newest eye pieces are better! I have no doubt about that but I usually can find game and birds just as quick if not faster than all my buddies with their newest HD scopes! And I have never been left wanting for something more in low light situations.... I can remember the time when I glassed up a huge drop tine buck back in 1991 with my older CTC-75 well after sundown at a distance of over 1000 yards! It just dosen't get much better than that!Anyway, I have had my CTC-75 in the worst weather imaginable multiple times! Two years ago, the day before Colorado deer season I sat in a bowl at over 10000 feet. I sat there under a large bush from 430 am to 10 am and it snowed on me at least a foot and a half! My CTC was on my Bogen next to me, extended, the whole time. It was completely soaked when I got up to pack and hike out. I gave it a quick rub down with my damp jacket sleeve, collapsed it and hiked out. When I got back how did it look? Perfect! As it has for the umpteen years I have used them.I never said you couldn't fog an SE! As a matter of fact you can fog any glass regardless of sealing and purging if you change temps to suddenly or if it is just to cold and the heat of you eyes cause a fog. Now this is not a true internal fogging of the optics just condensation on the outside of the glass but the point being is that any Bino can with the correct conditions leave you in a position where they are not usable for a period of time.Yes the Doctors are o-ringed and advertised as splash proof but the Nikon also has a o-rings protecting the eye pieces from dust and debris. Do you really think that Nikon would just attach an eye piece on such a high end bino as this without anything to keep any type of element out? I agree with this, I can't tell you how many people I have encountered in the field with the absolute cheapest binoculars they could buy from Tasco at Walmart! Even when out with these incredibly cheap binos I have yet to see a total failure where the bino looks as if it were filled with something someone was going to sneak into a college football game. Point here is don't drop your poros in a swimming pool! but they are probably sealed much, much better than most people here think... Now I'm not advocating that anyone here run out with their $1000 SE's in a huge rain storm just because of my feed back! Its just that, my feed back and that's it! Now I personally use my optics and I use them hard! But I also take very good care of them and handle them as if they were my eyes, which they are in the field. I didn't go out and buy a full set of Nikon Se's (8x32, 10x42, and 12x50's) to use them off my back porch! They will get used and they will get put to the test this entire fall and winter. If they fail in any way I'll post it and send them back to Nikon for repair. Then I'll pull my trusty EL's out and keep going. But, After the rain they have already seen and the performance they have already givin me I am very excited to have them in the field this season! John, As I said before, I really am not trying to be a jerk and I enjoy reading your posts but if you had cleaning solution enter your SE's through the top of the eye piece between the lens fitment you need to send them back to Nikon! That is a very precise eye piece and by simply over sprying cleaning solution on them there is no way you should have had that solution get in there. Something is wrong with the eye piece! Now if the bino was flipped over and solution ran in from the bottom I can see that but not the other way around, no way. And of course Nikon is going to tell you that they will leak... This covers their butt as they have never marketed this bino as water proof or weather resistant.....</blockquote>

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