Can anyone help I have just treated myself to some Opticron 8x42 BGA Classics, I did test them in an outside venue before purchase but now using them out in the field find i keep getting dark shadowing around the edges. I usually wear glasses and tested them with my glasses on, if using them without glasses it seems worse. If I hold the bins away from my eyes (when wearing glasses) it seems better what am I doing wrong or is it the bins???
[QUOTE=newbird]Can anyone help I have just treated myself to some Opticron 8x42 BGA Classics, I did test them in an outside venue before purchase but now using them out in the field find i keep getting dark shadowing around the edges. I usually wear glasses and tested them with my glasses on, if using them without glasses it seems worse. If I hold the bins away from my eyes (when wearing glasses) it seems better what am I doing wrong or is it the bins??? [/QUOTE]
You are experiencing what is called "blackouts". It happens because a) those binoculars have a long eye-relief (optimal distance between eyes and ocular lenses is rather long - this is good because it enables you to view while using eyeglasses) and b) your eyes are not properly alligned with the ocular lenses - you are not using the perfect interpupillary distance - the two barrels are too close of too far away from each other. You don't want to get rid of a) because you would not see the entire field of view with glasses/spectacles on. You can deal with b) by b1) look at the interpupilary scale markings of your binoculars and try at which of the settings you have the least of those blackouts. You can also do this by looking at the prescription for your glasses, somewhere in there the oculist wrote that your interpupilary distance is 67 mm for instance, and then set the binoculars at 67 mm; and b2) just try various settings for the interpupilary distance and various ways of holding those binoculars, until you are comfortable and don't get blackout s often - it will take a while, it's a learning curve.
Does any of this make any sense? It's 103 F outside and I should have used a hat.