Product Description

A good binocular can enhance your view; Image View binoculars will do the same for your memories. Bushnell Performance Optics has combined the high magnification and powerful performance of a Bushnell binocular with the advanced technical wizardry of a compact digital camera, giving you the option to capture and save any sight you experience. The Image View is ideal for sports fans, outdoor enthusiasts, adventure travelers, anyone with a desire to view and record whatever experiences come their way. Why settle for magnifying life when you can remember it for all time?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #875 in Camera & Photo
• Brand: Bushnell
• Model: 11-1025
• Dimensions: 4.20" h x 8.70" w x 11.30" l, 4.00 pounds

Features

• Binocular/digital camera combo
• 10x magnification, 25mm objective lenses
• 640 x 480 digital image resolution great for e-mailing
• 8 MB of built-in memory stores nearly 150 pictures
• Fold-down rubber eyecups to accommodate eyeglass wearers

Amazon.com Review
Combining a pair of binoculars with a digital camera is a brilliant idea with endless possibilities, with useful applications from birdwatchers documenting their greatest "catches" to parents zooming in on their kids on the playing field. Unfortunately, Bushnell’s Imageview digital binoculars, which integrate digital imaging into a pair of 10x25 binoculars, may be ahead of their time.

The image quality of the binoculars isn’t a problem, as they employ clear optics that allow for sharp focusing at the fixed 10x zoom level. Build quality also is good, with thick rubber coating on the sides to ensure a good grip and fold-down rubber eyecups to accommodate eyeglass wearers. The small 25mm objective lenses, however, don’t provide substantial light-gathering but do keep the design as small and light as possible

The built-in camera will be the real problem for most users. It uses a low-resolution CCD that snaps pictures at a fixed resolution of 640 x 480, which is fine for e-mail but not adequate for making prints. To make matters worse, most of the shots we took were grainy, with lots of compression artifacts and subpar color.

If you can live with those limitations, the camera does have the benefits of ease of use and plenty of image-storaging capacity. With 8 MB of built-in memory, we snapped nearly 150 pictures before connecting the camera to a PC. No image preview is available, but a basic black-and-white LCD display on top of the camera tells you how many pictures you’ve snapped and the selected mode.

With a better digital camera and removable memory slots, this idea of a high-quality camera-binocular hybrid could realize its full potential. However, the image quality compromises imposed by the Imageview will be too much for many to bear, regardless of the low price. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Compact binoculars
• Camera is easy to use and doesn’t require two hands
• Stores nearly 150 pictures in internal memory

Cons:

• Low picture quality
• No direct image preview or management
• 25mm objective lens means you need a lot of light to get the most out of the binoculars

Customer Reviews

Good idea, terrible product. Stay away!
When I saw a similar binocular/digital camera combo I knew I had to have one. When I got out to my local Best Buy, this was pretty much the only one they had in stock, so I bought it. It cost me about $..., a great deal I thought.

When I got home I took some 'pictures' of some potted plants in my backyard. When I loaded the software onto my computer, the problems began. There are basically no instructions on which piece of software included is the one you need to load. Having Windows XP I just tried to load the driver. This did not allow me to access the built in memory, however, as you can with most devices. So I loaded up the other 2 SW modules and went about trying to find the bushnell's pictures. Again, there are zero instructions on actually using the software to offload pictures from the binoculars. Even once you learn how it is easy to see that the software seems like it's from the 80's, and would be more at home in windows 3.11. Not to mention that when you get to preview the thumbnails the dang camera is streaming video into the software while you try to copy them over to your computer. I can't imagine a situation where you would need to stream binocular-image video while tethered to a computer via a USB cable. Oh, and all the pics are stored as BMP files. I mean, who uses BMP files for Pete's sake? Every digital camera I know of saves JPG or TIF images.

It was daylight when I took this first set of pics, but all the pictures that I took came out very fuzzy. I had taken several where the binoculars were sitting on a table top when I carefully pressed the `snap' button. Even though I could see the plants clear as day, these pictures too came out too fuzzy to recognize anything.

Ok, so I just figured I needed to adjust the focus a little because the camera was more sensitive than my eyes in terms of focus. In general, just get used to using the thing. No harm, no foul. I took it to a concert that night and took all 134 pictures I could on the higher quality setting. The 3-in-a-row picture feature was nice, and because you can be a little shaky pressing the button, it makes you feel like at least 2 out of 3 will be fairly stable pictures. I couldn't wait to get home and review the pictures. Was I in for a shock, I didn't believe my eyes when the thumbnails loaded up, so I copied all the pics on over to my PC and went about opening them in batches of about 20. Out of 134 I got 6 that were even recognizable, but they were again way to fuzzy to justify saving them. Now, although the performers on stage were well lit with bright spotlights, 98% of the pictures taken came out as solid black frames with a smattering of colored pixels smeared across them. It's as if I tried to use the thing in outer space or something. I was completely horrified that none of the pictures from that once in a lifetime event were anywhere near worth saving. What a bummer!

So, in summation, the binoculars are decent and compact. And they produce a nice image when looking into them. But don't even think of trying to take a picture. And again, I cannot iterate enough how out-dated the software is. I also cannot think of how these even made it to the market `working' like they do. After all, if you knew you couldn't take a picture with them, you would just purchase binoculars right?

Needless to say, I promptly returned mine for a cash refund the next day. I hope my tragedy of an experience saves a few of you from buying this product. Maybe there's another one out there which works better. We shall see....

Is it a bird or a leaf.
I love this idea. Take a picture of what you see thru a binocular. However, this camera has it's limits. Not only could I not review the pix (til I got to my PC), the image was NOT what I saw. The yellow bird in the tree, became the tree with a yellow leaf, maybe.
The binocular is Great: small, powerful, easy to focus. The tech support thru Bushnell was terrific. Making the PC recognize the camera took one phone call. The op manual needs HELP, or maybe I'm too much of an novice in this field.

Interesting Product
I got it as a b'day gift. Its compact and very handy. Binoculars works great so does the digital camera, but unfortunately...you cannot take pictures of objects that are close to you...it has to be far enough so that you can focus moreover, its very difficult not to shake the camera while you click..probably will take a while before I can get used to it.