Tweets,
Many birders I know have had difficulties w. the non-optic portions of their Swarovski bins--focus wheel troubles and eye cups falling off--even when the products are new. Swarovski will fix these problems and if not, they will send a new set of bins. (No such issues noted with the scopes.) But some folks have begun carrying back-up bins on foreign trips. True to form, on a Nov trip we took to S. Argentina, a Canadian birder lost one of his eye cups, and unable to locate it on the ground, was grateful that it was towards the end of the trip. When I took some Swift bins into Close Scientific (or maybe Close Instruments now) several years ago and queried him about the more sturdy brands, he told me he wouldn't work on Swarovskis b/c they were always falling apart!

One thing to keep in mind is that about 3 yrs ago, Swarovski reduced its warranty on optics housing from lifetime to 10 yrs. (The optical/lens portions remain lifetime warranted.) I learned this at a workshop conducted by the local Swarovski rep, who was unhappy with the company's decision. They may or may not have retracted that--I have heard nothing further on it and have not been to additional workshops. That said, Seattle people seem to love Swarovskis.

The discussion here is between Swarovski and Leica. But I'll put a pitch in for the Zeiss Victory--mine are 8X42's. They are super sturdy, bright, and are even a bit lighter wieght than the Swarovskis. Now if only they had those nice thumb depressions...
Penny Koyama, Bothell
plkoyama at frontier.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Pterodroma at aol.com
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 11:23 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] binocular servicing/repair & Swarovski vs Leica


subject was: Re: Leica Servicing

That all being said, Swarovski does have one major design flaw which means they very well may not last a life time or even a relatively short life time and I am discovering several people now experiencing the same issue as me. The focus mechanism wears out. Unlike similar roof prism bins e.g. Leica & Zeiss and others, apparently there are gears that are just simply doomed to wear out sooner or later depending on amount of use. In my case, use is far more than average or weekend warrior style birding. Four going on five years now by my standards of punishment might equal a life time for average use.