I'm just here again because I saw the thread had popped up as one of the latest threads on the right-hand side of my screen and I had a look through it for 'old times sake', going back to before I last posted here in July 2023.
Reading all of the posts, yes all of them, from then I got to wondering if any poster on these boards actually bothers to read earlier comments to see the history of the discussion, before they come in with their personal pearls of wisdom and I regretfully come to the conclusion that with a few notable exceptions, very few do.
For instance, time and again I see the same (innacurate) platitudes like 'not to worry, it mainly occurs in humid jungles and such and the rest of us have nothing to worry about unless we have sweaty hands and bathe in DEET' or 'It's not a problem in northern latitudes, just avoid going to Costa Rica if you can', or 'How dare you complain, just because your binoculars are crap? Mine are just fine!'
Just for the record, and to save people scrolling back too far and wearing out their scroll buttons, I will re-iterate some of my points.
1. I bought my ELs in 2016 and by early 2019 they were starting to see deterioration in the coating. By autumn 2019 they were falling apart and that's when I sent them to Swarovski for repair and I started a thread here to see if anyone else had suffered a similar problem. For my efforts, I suffered all sorts of accusations, including knocking them about, abusing them, having sweaty hands and using insect deterrent or sunscreen, even though I posted a copy of Swaro's response to say they were now using bio-degradable plastic to alert people to this fact.
2. I don't use DEET except on very, very rare occasions, and when I do, I wash my hands thoroughly after applying it. My £2,000-plus binoculars are inexpensive compared to the camera gear I carry, and I'm not about to jeopardise that, or my binoculars.
3. I qualified as a surveyor, using delicate optical equipment, many decades ago, and looking after optics is second nature - I don't kick them about, put them on the ground, cover them in dust, or use them to knock nails in with.
4. I don't use sun-screen. I have clothes and a hat to do that job.
5. I don't have sweaty palms.
6. I don't live in the tropics, far from it, quite the opposite. At something over 55° North on the North Sea coast of England, high humidity and high temperature is not something I need to worry about at home - ever. I have two or three trips per year, mainly to Spanish territory, to coincide with spring and autumn migration periods, and maybe a January or March trip thrown in, so no extreme temperatures, or high humidity there. Optics kept out of the sun during transport.
7. And still my binocular armour fell to bits in three years from new.