The Joy of Binocular Collimation - Lisa Compton

Following the directions that Bob M. posted in this discussion group last December I decided to have a go at collimating the binoculars myself. Applying a cost/benefit model to the problem it became clear to me that the risk of a USD100.00 loss was well worth the prospect of experiencing first hand the joy of collimating and possibly learning something in the process.

The collimation exercise seemed to go well and it became immediately obvious to me when the binoculars came into collimation. Strangely, discerning proper collimation was more a sensation of comfort while looking through the eyepieces as opposed to being the study of a subject and determining when the subject's multiple images converged.

In an effort to verify this sensation I repeated the experiment multiple times by adjusting the binoculars in and out of collimation. There was no question that I experienced genuine visual discomfort (probably due to eyestrain) with all but an extremely narrow range of good collimation.

While collimating the binoculars I discovered that the prism adjustment screws are actually on the top of the binoculars not behind the plates marked "Bear" and "15x70". The directions were somewhat nebulous (no pun intended) in their description of the location of these screws and I initially went searching for them behind the marked "caps" until it became clear that these could not be pried.

When peeling the rubber "skin" back at the edge to collimate the binoculars, I suggest prying slowly and carefully. The rubber skin is glued to the binocular body along the edge and haste could result in tearing the skin. No, I did not tear mine but it is easy to see how one could inadvertently do so. As the original collimating directions state, the rubber skin does quickly snap back into place once the collimation procedure is completed. Running the index finger along the rubber edge will smooth out any ripples and result in an original factory appearance.