Accidental bino waterproofness testing. Oops!
On a recent hunting trip with another couple of forum members I had an oops with the Delta Optical Forest II binos that I brought from @Sarvo.
Short story:
Binos were in a mountain stream for more than 24hrs and did not leak. Definitely buy these if you’re budget conscious and want high performing binos.
Long story:
We were glassing from one location from mid-afternoon to late evening so I’d disconnected them from the elastic ties in my Bushbuck bino holder. Packed up and headed towards the hut but part way back I looked down and saw the bino holder’s stupid magnetic catch was open and binos gone.We back tracked a bit looking for them but with lot of thigh high vegetation on the river flats and the snow melt discoloured knee deep mountain stream we’d crossed many times hope wasn’t high.
And that’s how it played out, they were gone. Not a massive financial loss as they’re <$300 but they had been a 50th birthday gift from my daughter so felt the pain from their loss.
Next day our target hunting area was several kilometres along the same river flats and stream so looked as we went. Nothing. Had to use my cheapie SNDWAY 1000m range finder as backup binos. Not great but better than nothing!
Very early hours of the next morning while returning to hut after a successful evening I hear a whoop whoop ahead and me and hunting mate has seen an odd shape in the now clear knee deep water. It’s my binos!!!
In our headtorches they appeared to be dry internally. So with them carefully stashed into backpack we returned to hut and while celebrating the hunt sucess confirmed that they were indeed dry internally and the only evidence of them being underwater for more than 24hrs as a bit of grittiness of the focus and eye cups. Bloody amazing!
Once home I gave them a wash under running tap and they’re now back to 100%.
So low cost with glass that performs more like binos worth 3-4 times the price and very water proof to boot. Thanks Sarvo. I highly recommend these binos.
