binoc/digital camera

[Chickadee-Pat]

I just joined this forum so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong place....and point me in the right direction please!
I birdwatch mostly in Central Va. I am interested in purchasing one of the binoc/digital camera combos purely for my pleasure. The pics I snap would truly be mainly for my enjoyment only. I travel with my digital camera and binoculars so I thought this item would be neat to take on a birding trip and just to bird around town.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Pat

[russkie]

ive spoken to a few people about this - particularly about the mead digiview i think its called - and they all agree that if you are used to using good quality bins - you will be VERY dissappointed in these combinations.
hopefully they will improve in the future but unless someone has better info id avoid them at the moment.
cheers nigel

[RAH]

The New York Times had a review of them a few months ago. Some of the high-end ones (by Bushnell, I think) were considered not too bad, so you might do OK by spending say about $300.

But even then, you're getting mediocre binocs and a VERY mediocre digital camera. Myself, I can fit an Olympus C-750 super zoom camera, plus a pair of Pentax 8x28 roof-prism binocs into a fairly small camera case. I think this is a much better arrangement (don't forget, these dual-purpose binocs are NOT small, so you aren't saving much weight or bulk over separate items).

[IanF]

We've treid a couple of different ones and returned them. The bino section is usally pretty good when new - but on the ones we've tried the binos and camera operate entirely separately - the photo you take isn't what the binos sees. The photo comes from a fixed focus/fixed aperture lens so everything from around 12'-infinity is in focus but cannot be zoomed in. Essentially you're taking a landscape photo.

A bird say Swan or Goose sized at 15' wouldn't fill the frame!

My advice as suggested by RAH is a compact pairs of binos and a 10x 0r 12x zoom camera for any photos - even then the birds have to be fairly close as in around 15-20' at most

[christineredgate]

It is a no go area.When you think of the cost of a decent pair of bins,then add the cost of a decent digi cam ,the two do not add up.To take a decent pic from a cam one needs to hold the cam very steady.If you are using the bins/cam,this is not easy.To be holding the bins and trying to hold very steady to take an image is not easy.I suggest you try before you buy.