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Voice Recording Binoculars (1 Viewer)

I don't suppose birders will use them (and I guess the OP doesn't really expect them to) but they actually seem like quite a good product to me. Being able to make recordings of what you see is maybe a good way of getting children interested in wildlife and getting them to pay more attention to what they're looking at. From an educational point of view they seem well conceived.
 
As surmised above, it was not a serious suggestion! But they do look a fab thing for encouraging children in nature observation, I found them in an education supply catalogue.
 
Two thoughts:

First: some people have more money than smarts and feel to be lauded by their peers they must have every gadget that becomes available—practical or not.

Second: “It’s a pipedream. If a conveyance (locomotive in this case) were to reach a speed of 20 miles an hour, oxygen would be drawn away from the nose and mouth and the passengers would suffocate.”—A paraphrased scientific comment against the locomotive Tom Thumb as it was approaching that speed in 1838. :cat:

Bill

The really bad thing about statements like that one is that the person who uttered the particular gem usually doesn't even have the grace to be embarrassed when it becomes obvious what drivel it was.
 
The really bad thing about statements like that one is that the person who uttered the particular gem usually doesn't even have the grace to be embarrassed when it becomes obvious what drivel it was.

Thank you. You are absolutely right. Now, if you delete yours, life is good.:cat:

Bill
 
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As surmised above, it was not a serious suggestion! But they do look a fab thing for encouraging children in nature observation, I found them in an education supply catalogue.

I went on a guided bird walk in a regional park a few months ago, hosted by the local Audubon Society. The guide used her iPhone a few times to record the sequence of birds she'd just seen. In the last decade, when I used to go to dark skies to look at stars, some of the observers used voice recorders to take down their observations in lieu of written notes, possibly for efficiency, or to minimize their exposure to brighter light. My point is that folks have been using this approach long before the product showed up tied to a specific (and brightly colored) observing device (of dubious quality)

There's nothing wrong with the idea, except one's phone is probably the correct place for the utility to live, with possibly a bluetooth microphone worn by the user, or on the bino strap. Recording bird calls, while observing, might be a useful practice for those so inclined.

Right now I'm happy with a binocular, a small camera, and a notebook.
 
Well, actually I wouldn't mind a small camera added to the bin that could make a quick picture, doesn't need to be excellent quality, just so that I have something to support my memory/ notes when I am at home, researching what bird I had seen. Grabing the camera or holding the phone in front of the ocular often proves too time consuming and then the bird is gone....
 
Well, actually I wouldn't mind a small camera added to the bin that could make a quick picture, doesn't need to be excellent quality, just so that I have something to support my memory/ notes when I am at home, researching what bird I had seen. Grabing the camera or holding the phone in front of the ocular often proves too time consuming and then the bird is gone....

When one considers the size of a go-pro these days, or the lens of an iPhone camera. Its as if the technology and scale of components already exist, but no one has assembled them into a system for birders that would mount on a binocular.

If we're talking about it, my bet is that Swarovski, or someone else has been developing it for a while, and will charge an arm and a leg for a beautifully integrated component system. I would prefer to think of it like how a light can be mounted on a bicycle, though, so most bins could be utilized, not just those of a single manufacturer. Even pre-existing phones could possibly be used as the processing and storage device. Cabling, if needed, run discreetly through the strap or harness. Perhaps something like this already exists for hunters.
 
Hi,

Turns out that Bushnell already made something like a video/camera bin. It's zoom capabilities and picture quality seem crappy though.

When I first heard about the concept of binoculars that are able to take still pictures I quite liked the idea. That lasted only to the moment where I had a look through an actual example. To be fair, it was cheap.

An "action cam" with a long lens as an externally mounted addition to a standard pair of binoculars might work better. Not sure if anything like that is available, and the mounting would be a bit of a challenge. Paintballers seem to mount action cams behind low-magnification rifle scopes on NATO rails, but fixing a NATO rail to a pair of binoculars to that it doesn't interfere with normal handling ... difficult!

Regards,

Henning
 
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