John Dracon
John Dracon
I would select a binocular that had a proven history of being rugged, waterproof, mechanically dependable and had decent optics. It would also possess the ability of redundancy. My choice might surprise many BF posters. It would be Zeiss's 8x30 IF Safari roof with P coating. Why? Read on.
When Zeiss first began to market the Safari in the US, I ordered one through a mail order business. It came with a metric grid in one of the barrels. I returned the Safari to Zeiss for removal of the grid, which they did. It became my all around binocular for years. Its objective and ocular covers were functional as was the rubber covering. It was compact, relatively light, and almost unbelievably tough as the following stories will illustrate.
I took many boat and canoe trips with it, and also hunting trips via trucks and horses. Over the years it got banged against trees, saddle horns, and survived numerous falls and tumbles. On one particular canoeing trip into the Southeast Arm of Yellowstone Lake, a party of eight with four canoes set up a comfortable camp at the bottom of the Arm, and the Safari got its first serious water test.
One evening a thunderstorm brewed up just at dark. Several of my friends dashed to the canoes to pull them completely out of the water. Waves came crashing in as we laid snug and secure in our tents, a rustic kind of symphony guaranteed to put one into deep sleep.
In the morning I looked for my binoculars, which I had left hanging on a nearby tree stub that dusk, but they were gone. Not all of the party had binoculars which is often the case with a large party. Mine had become a form of community property, which of course was OK. A quick inquiry revealed that prior to the storm, two of my friends had taken a short trip on the lake to look at some moose feeding on the opposite shoreline. Upon returning they had pulled the canoe halfway out of the water, and my friend remembered he had left the Safari on the back top of the double end canoe, and it had fallen in since it wasn't in the canoe.
Armed with this information we began to look into the water. Fortunately, Yellowstone Lake water is clear as tap water, so anything the size of the binocular should show up easily. But try as we did, we couldn't find it.
The Yellowstone Lake shoreline consists mostly of very small pieces of dark granite ground into a tiny gravel bed. When storms come in, depending on the direction of the blow, gravel furrows formed by three and four foot waves create a churning effect. The Zeiss could easily be buried under a foot of gravel. Probing proved difficult.
Then luck struck us. One of the party noticed a small bit of the olive colored strap protruding above the lake bed. This was in about two feet of water. So I gingerly reached down and worked my fingers around the strap and with some effort pulled the binocular up out of its watery grave. The covers were still in place.
Sloshing the binocular around in the water all the gravel bits fell off. Walking ashore we dried the Safari off and were relieved to find no moisture inside. From that point on it became the talk of the trip. One of my friends was so impressed, he wanted to buy it from me. I said no. This was in the 1970s and Zeiss binoculars were not common in Montana.
He kept pestering me for the next several years so I eventually sold them to him. But from this point on, the Safari's reputation began to grow again. My friend was an avid hunter, and his brother was enamored with them so much that they became family property. On a summer trip horseback fishing and camping trip into a wilderness area, the brother took them along and somehow dropped them while fording into a swift flowing river still high from the spring runoff. They disappeared into a brush-log jam and couldn't be found.
According to the story told me, the binoculars had been hanging from the saddle horn, and the brother decided to look at something, and he put them to his eyes to look at something, and in putting them down the strap missed the saddle horn, and down they went into the swift water. Stories have a way of being constructed so as to challenge the veracity of the teller. Not everyone has a brother this inept.
Yet the story continues. This same brother took horses into the same area to hunt elk that fall, and forded the same stretch of water, which or course was much lower. He claimed he found the binoculars wedged in the branches. They were not damaged at all. No water inside.
Jim Bridger, an old time trapper, told stories about the Yellowstone Park area 50 years before it became a national park. One was about a petrified tree with a petrified bird singing a petrified song. One third of the story was true. I believe the Zeiss IF 8x30 Safari is probably the most rugged binocular ever built. I've seen it since its watery adventures. The covering is all cracked yet still intact. And the optics are still clear.
John
When Zeiss first began to market the Safari in the US, I ordered one through a mail order business. It came with a metric grid in one of the barrels. I returned the Safari to Zeiss for removal of the grid, which they did. It became my all around binocular for years. Its objective and ocular covers were functional as was the rubber covering. It was compact, relatively light, and almost unbelievably tough as the following stories will illustrate.
I took many boat and canoe trips with it, and also hunting trips via trucks and horses. Over the years it got banged against trees, saddle horns, and survived numerous falls and tumbles. On one particular canoeing trip into the Southeast Arm of Yellowstone Lake, a party of eight with four canoes set up a comfortable camp at the bottom of the Arm, and the Safari got its first serious water test.
One evening a thunderstorm brewed up just at dark. Several of my friends dashed to the canoes to pull them completely out of the water. Waves came crashing in as we laid snug and secure in our tents, a rustic kind of symphony guaranteed to put one into deep sleep.
In the morning I looked for my binoculars, which I had left hanging on a nearby tree stub that dusk, but they were gone. Not all of the party had binoculars which is often the case with a large party. Mine had become a form of community property, which of course was OK. A quick inquiry revealed that prior to the storm, two of my friends had taken a short trip on the lake to look at some moose feeding on the opposite shoreline. Upon returning they had pulled the canoe halfway out of the water, and my friend remembered he had left the Safari on the back top of the double end canoe, and it had fallen in since it wasn't in the canoe.
Armed with this information we began to look into the water. Fortunately, Yellowstone Lake water is clear as tap water, so anything the size of the binocular should show up easily. But try as we did, we couldn't find it.
The Yellowstone Lake shoreline consists mostly of very small pieces of dark granite ground into a tiny gravel bed. When storms come in, depending on the direction of the blow, gravel furrows formed by three and four foot waves create a churning effect. The Zeiss could easily be buried under a foot of gravel. Probing proved difficult.
Then luck struck us. One of the party noticed a small bit of the olive colored strap protruding above the lake bed. This was in about two feet of water. So I gingerly reached down and worked my fingers around the strap and with some effort pulled the binocular up out of its watery grave. The covers were still in place.
Sloshing the binocular around in the water all the gravel bits fell off. Walking ashore we dried the Safari off and were relieved to find no moisture inside. From that point on it became the talk of the trip. One of my friends was so impressed, he wanted to buy it from me. I said no. This was in the 1970s and Zeiss binoculars were not common in Montana.
He kept pestering me for the next several years so I eventually sold them to him. But from this point on, the Safari's reputation began to grow again. My friend was an avid hunter, and his brother was enamored with them so much that they became family property. On a summer trip horseback fishing and camping trip into a wilderness area, the brother took them along and somehow dropped them while fording into a swift flowing river still high from the spring runoff. They disappeared into a brush-log jam and couldn't be found.
According to the story told me, the binoculars had been hanging from the saddle horn, and the brother decided to look at something, and he put them to his eyes to look at something, and in putting them down the strap missed the saddle horn, and down they went into the swift water. Stories have a way of being constructed so as to challenge the veracity of the teller. Not everyone has a brother this inept.
Yet the story continues. This same brother took horses into the same area to hunt elk that fall, and forded the same stretch of water, which or course was much lower. He claimed he found the binoculars wedged in the branches. They were not damaged at all. No water inside.
Jim Bridger, an old time trapper, told stories about the Yellowstone Park area 50 years before it became a national park. One was about a petrified tree with a petrified bird singing a petrified song. One third of the story was true. I believe the Zeiss IF 8x30 Safari is probably the most rugged binocular ever built. I've seen it since its watery adventures. The covering is all cracked yet still intact. And the optics are still clear.
John
Last edited:
