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more bionocular input



Like Len, I bought the Bausch and Lomb 10x42 Elites. National Camera had the
best price at the time (800-624-8107), but I've dealt with both National
Camera and Eagle Optics before and have been very pleased with both.

I love the B&L Elites. They feel great in my hands, which are relatively
small. And the optics are supurb. Although relatively heavy, they are
lighter than some other excellent optics, and I got accustomed to the extra
weight in no time.

However, I have two miinor complaints, both of which will be irrelevant to
many people, but not to all.

Although the eye relief is excellent, for those who wear glasses when they
use binos, there is a problem with it. The eye-pieces are not pop-up, like
Swarovski, but use the old method. You have to turn the rubber down over the
eye-piece (sort of like rolling the cuff of your sleeve up). The
instructions say that you shouldn't leave the rubber turned down--you're
supposed to roll it back up at the end of each outing, otherwise the rubber
will decay. Well, it takes a lot of strength and some skill to get the
rubber turned down so it stays down, and if you use your binos everyday I
would imagine that the daily fiddling with the rubber would make it
self-destruct just as soon, or maybe sooner, than leaving it turned down.
I'm slightly unhappy about that, but if you don't wear glasses it's
completely irrelevant.

Another minor point is that the focus wheel works opposite to that of the
B&L 8x42 Elite and the Swift Ultralite 10x42 (which I would recommend to
anyone on a tighter budget). Cynthia, my spouse, has the B&L 8x42, and if we
ever need to share binos, one of us is always turning the focus wheel in the
wrong direction. Frankly, I still turn the focus wheel on my 10x42 in the
wrong direction sometimes, since I used the Swift's for years before getting
these. It is frustrating, and I occasionally lose birds while focusing.

By and large, though, the B&L Elites are darn good.

Charlotte Goedsche
Asheville NC
goedschejanes@mindspring.com