Since I received them a while back off Ebay, my Minox BD 8x32 BR binoculars have had a large scratch - well an area where the multicoating has been scratched off about 0.5cm across on the centre of the lens. The eyepiece lenses also have a load of fine scratches and cleaning marks on the coatings too, will either of these blemishes cause problems to image quality?
This is perhaps a slightly silly question as I've never noticed a problem, but as these marks were on the binoculars when I bought them I don't know what the view was like before these marks were made. I sometimes think I can see some flaring on bright objects but not sure if it's my imagination or I'm seeing this as I'm expecting it due to the coating damage - if that makes sense lol!
I love these battered but excellent binoculars, is it worth replacing them and relegating them to 'work bag' or 'glovebox' duties, or carrying on? These old BDs also have rather sloppy interpupillary distance adjustment (it moves on it's own if you hold one of the barrels!), missing 'Minox' badge and not the best focusser but I still think they're excellent! However the coating damage is bothering me the most.
Would something like the Opticron Discovery 8x32s or the Hawke Frontiers be the equivalent of these, or Minox's own BR or BV range? I'm selling my 10x32BN Leicas (in the 'for sale' section - shameless plug lol) as these don't get much use (gone off 10x mag) and to pay for my recently-purchased Sony A350, but hopefully will have enough cash left from their sale for another pair of binoculars around the £150 mark.
Sammy:
You have quite a story here. You must be very rough on your optics. Just keep them,
you could not afford to have them repaired. Ocular scratches are worse than those
on the objective for problems with view.
Take care.
if you can't see the scratch marks when looking tru i would keep them..if its only the coating it will only be a small proportion of the whole area..have you looked at a bright star thru them to check how bad it really is..i have found a lot of scatches etc need to be there for it to be noticable