Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

How To Keep Your Binoculars Fog-Free

If you are a serious birdwatcher, you must hate when birding binocular fogged or misted up. Fogging inside of the binocular can interfere with your viewing.

There two type of fogging in your binocular, internal fogging and external fogging. Internal fogging take a longer time to clean up, while in external fogging you can swipe the lens surface to clean up. Before you learn how to keep your binocular free from internal and external fog, you should know how fog form.

How Fog Forms


Fog is condensed water vapor that forms when high humidity connects with a cool mass, such as cooler air or a cold surface area.

Fog easily takes place in tropical locations, near coastlines or near big bodies of water such as lakes and marshes- all prime birding environments! Current rain, can change temperature levels and air masses quickly that lead to foggy conditions.

For binoculars, spotting cameras and scopes, fog can condense on the cool surface area of a lens or the cooled body of the equipment, making it hard to make use of the devices. Water droplets will rapidly collect on the body and lenses of the devices, and it can take 15-30 minutes or more for it to naturally dissipate.
fog-free birding binocular

Anti-Fog Binoculars


Nitrogen and argon are the 2 most typical gasses utilized for this process, and in optics that have this type of building, there will certainly be no internal fogging on fragile lenses - fogging that might take much longer to disappear can harm your binocular if left uncontrolled. This does not indicate, that the outside of the devices will certainly not collect fog.

Some makers deal with outside lens surface areas with anti-fog finishings, normally water-repellent substances that keep small water droplets from sticking to the surface area of the glass and for that reason lower or totally get rid of the fog. This treatment can work well for a very long time, especially if the lenses are cleaned regularly. Due to the fact that numerous birders make use of the exact same preferred pair of binoculars for several years, it is constantly rewarding to find out the best ways to keep binocular from fogging up, no matter what their building or exactly what treatments they have actually gotten.

How to Keep Binoculars From Fogging Up


There are a number of methods to keep your birding binoculars, spotting cameras and scopes or other devices, from building up a layer of fog.


  1. Anti-Fog Products: There is a wide range of anti-fog sprays, wipes, drops, creams and other items that can be carefully covered on lenses to decrease fog condensation. The efficiency of anti-fog treatment differs from a few short hours to a week or more depending upon the conditions of usage, and they are simple and quick to use. Make sure to use the anti-fog product recommended by your binocular manufacturer and does not void any service or trigger any added troubles.
  2. Spit-and-Polish: Human spit is one of the most functional as an anti-fog treatment alternative. As unusual as it sounds, cleaning saliva carefully onto a lens can assist fend off fog or other wetness, however, take care that the lens is clean initially so no grit is unintentionally ground into the lens as it is being cleaned.
  3. Temperature Adjustments: Allowing devices to naturally adapt to local temperature level and humidity is the best method to keep fog from forming on lenses or other surface areas. This is not constantly useful, nevertheless, since it suggests the devices have to be left in a location where it is exposed to outside conditions for a minimum of 30 minutes, which might put it at danger for theft or damage. Instead of leaving devices entirely exposed, try to put your binocular in a locked automobile with windows a little, however, make sure it runs out sight so as not to lure a possible burglar.
  4. Gentle Cleaning: If lenses do end up being misted, clean your birding binocular carefully to get rid of water condensing on the glass. The fog will certainly reform rapidly, however, repeated cleaning can keep the optics minimally useful while they change. If the lenses are greatly covered, nevertheless, understand that overcleaning might harm those fragile finishings and it might not deserve the threat to get rid of fog that will ultimately dissipate by itself.


When you do not use your binocular, try to keep it inside an airtight plastic bag along with some commercial desiccant. The desiccant will absorb the excess moisture, eliminating the source of the fogging.

Keep the binoculars as dry as possible on future outings, once the moisture has been removed. If you are using the binoculars during wet weather, keep them covered when you are not looking through them. Wipe off any outside moisture as soon as possible.