AX Visio: is it really as bad as some reviewers claim?? (3 Viewers)

[Viraj]

Thanks for the correct info on magnification.

"Most birder here use focal lengths of 400-600mm to document observations. Some use even longer focal lengths."

Whew! I've used Canon 600 mm f/4 IS and ISII lenses for 14 years. I don't know of any sane person on earth that carries a 600 mm lens while birding... it's absolute insanity due to its size and weight and the absolute need for a heavy tripod and a gimbal. Good luck in the woods carrying a 600 mm lens and a tripod/gimbal looking for birds -- or even in open country in anything but hospitable terrain. Like carrying an anvil.

Even the latest, lightest, 6th generation Canon RF 600 mm ($13,000 USD) is way too cumbersome to be practical for birding. Great for photography, but that's not birding, it's photography. You don't carry a 600 mm lens up to Hawk Mt. (HM) to count raptors -- you use binoculars. And even the much lighter/superb Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II-- a lens I own --would be a handful to carry up to the HM North Lookout.

I think it is not necessarily a 600 mm prime lens, which is very heavy to use for documenting purposes. There are 150-600 mm lenses, they are much lighter and good enough for documenting purposes, even for bird photography. New generation lenses like Canon RF 800 mm F 11, are also much lighter (only 1260 g) compared to the canon premium EF L lenses. So the camera setup would not exceed the weight of a spotting scope setup. Other than that, the weight of the setup wouldn’t have much effect if you are birding from a hide.

 

[Hermann]

"Most birder here use focal lengths of 400-600mm to document observations. Some use even longer focal lengths."

Whew! I've used Canon 600 mm f/4 IS and ISII lenses for 14 years. I don't know of any sane person on earth that carries a 600 mm lens while birding... it's absolute insanity due to its size and weight and the absolute need for a heavy tripod and a gimbal. Good luck in the woods carrying a 600 mm lens and a tripod/gimbal looking for birds -- or even in open country in anything but hospitable terrain. Like carrying an anvil.

Quite right. But then I didn't mention a 600 f/4. A lot of people over here use a Canon 100-400 f/5.6 or a Nikon 500 f/5.6. Or even a bridge camera like the Nikon P1000. These are a lot lighter than a 600 f/4.

BTW, my own combination is a Nikon D7500 with a 70-300mm f/5.6 or 100-400mm f/6.3. Total weight of camera+either lens is below 2 kg. Still a bit much - but that combination works.

That said, I think the Visio is a step in the right direction. I still believe they really should have included stabilisation, of course. And a longer focal length of the camera would have been better. I also think they should have incorporated a way to save the photos in some kind of RAW format rather than just a lossy jpg format.

Hermann

 

[Hermann]

It could be done by increasing the megapixels per picture with the help from Topaz Lab Gigapixel AI Gigapixel AI for those lower megapixels cameras etc

That only works if the quality of the picture is good enough. Otherwise the results are pretty abysmal.

Hermann

 

[dalat]

260 mm (in full frame equivalents, actual focal length is 35 mm) is indeed not much and will only yield good record shots for birds that are rather close. I agree that more focal length would be better, but would probably need stabilisation to work.

My own camera is a MFT crop sensor with equivalent focal length of 200-800 mm and weight of 1.6 kg. Great and light set up, but it also has its limits, eg. in low light. It is pretty obvious that it won't be possible to get similar reach and quality in a tiny tube added to a binocular.

 

[Dyrlege]

interesting thoughts on this! I wish everyone would think about technology and make conscious decisions of how they want it to intrude into their lives.

Using technology doesn't just make some things easier - it changes you as well. This type of tool is such an obvious choice to me. I could go out on a birding excursion with the computer as my companion, or I could go with other friendly humans, who can instantly identify any bird and teach me for free. With all the benefits of human social interaction that we need to survive and be healthy....not to mention carrying 42mm binos for 7 ounces less weight than these 32's.

And then there's the additional human interaction when I go to the pub and drink a few hundred pints with the money I saved

And "they" say alcohol is unhealthy 😂
Using technology: most birders I know have a mobile, and use it. Not just to make calls, often to open an electronic field guide...
The AX is an aid, not a mind. And it can only count ones and nils.

 

[Dyrlege]

As someone who used to write handbooks for airport logistics systems for both freight and baggage (on average around eight well-filled A4 file folders per project) I agree very strongly.
RTFM is a very good tenet to adhere to, and today's cavalier attitude by companies who more often than not just fob the paying customer off with a QR-code on the box so one can try to decipher the equivalent of an A4 page on a poxy mobile screen is extremely offputting. Many companies even no longer produce pdf files one can download. These, if they are done well and professionally, have links in the index and the text linking to relevant parts in the same document, which makes their use a doddle. Just like using a traditional paper document. AND one can read them on any (size) screen, which may or may not be important as one gets older.
In this respect Swarovski are just following a general trend with their apparently 'shoddy' manual for this toy. At the price I personally would expect them to go the the expense of having their documentation manager or multi-media designer create a good PDF manual. Or even a quick-start-guide PLUS a comprehensive manual.

Lack of manual: learning by doing. There is a lot missing in the written stuff, and I would like more technical detail. That said: it's fun and works.

 

[Ignatius]

The very capable Fuji XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR weighs 1375g. That is a 150-600 in FF. And it costs about 1900 in your currency. One can very easily use it for hand-held shots of excellent quality, especially when matched to late model Fuji X bodies with ibis.

And as far as upscaling images goes ... when I was studying multi-media design many moons ago (SRH Heidelberg), we were taught that an increase of max 10% is possible, but only with excellent source material and an acceptable deterioration in quality.
Ok, now we have the 'blessings' of AI, but one may want to ask, when a picture record of reality starts becoming a piece of artifically created art. Maybe such images are like rumours - they contain a kernel of truth, but no more.

 

[tenex]

260 mm (in full frame equivalents, actual focal length is 35 mm) is indeed not much...

Yes, effective focal length depends on sensor size; where are these two specs documented? Such a camera is essentially producing postcard photos, which are really not what the purchaser of a binocular-camera would want for most purposes.

 

[Dyrlege]

Yes, effective focal length depends on sensor size; where are these two specs documented? Such a camera is essentially producing postcard photos, which are really not what the purchaser of a binocular-camera would want for most purposes.

I believe there's a 13 MP sensor, and the "postcards" ain't half bad. The one with the tree sparrows is cropped, by the way.
And as an actual purchaser, I've gotten what I want, at least so far. And as I've mentioned before, this is an aid to birding, mammaling, butterflying, observation in general, and it has an inbuilt machine (AI) that may suggest what species you're looking at. But it's up to the human using it to accept suggestions or not.
😄

 

[Dyrlege]

260 mm (in full frame equivalents, actual focal length is 35 mm) is indeed not much and will only yield good record shots for birds that are rather close. I agree that more focal length would be better, but would probably need stabilisation to work.

My own camera is a MFT crop sensor with equivalent focal length of 200-800 mm and weight of 1.6 kg. Great and light set up, but it also has its limits, eg. in low light. It is pretty obvious that it won't be possible to get similar reach and quality in a tiny tube added to a binocular.

Where did you find the focal length?
Per

 

[dalat]

In the exif data of one of the pics uploaded here.

 

[Dyrlege]

In the exif data of one of the pics uploaded here.

Walk me through that one!

Re MFT: OM or Panasonic? I have the latter, and the 1-400mm is fab! A G9 with that on it is always ready in the camera bag.
Cheers
Per

 

[dalat]

Walk me through that one!

Each photo out of the camera has exif data stored, with info on shutter speed, iso etc of the photo taken. This includes info on the focal length. You can read the data with an image processing software or an online exif reader.

I have the same Panasonic set up as you do...

 

[Dyrlege]

Each photo out of the camera has exif data stored, with info on shutter speed, iso etc of the photo taken. This includes info on the focal length. You can read the data with an image processing software or an online exif reader.

I have the same Panasonic set up as you do...

I learn!
Thanks
Per
Oh, and have you updated your software, and if so, was it worth it? I've not gotten around to that, yet (too many wars, they still keep me busy).
P

 

[tehri]

Online EXIF data viewer... https://jimpl.com/​

 

[Dyrlege]

Online EXIF data viewer... https://jimpl.com/​

THANK YOU!🙏

 

[dalat]

Oh, and have you updated your software, and if so, was it worth it? I've not gotten around to that, yet (too many wars, they still keep me busy).

I have updated cam and lens from time to time, there were several updates. The updates I really felt were improved auto focus performance and the addition of bird/animal detection (as this is also an AI powered function, we stay somewhat on topic here ). There were also quite some video related improvements, but not sure what exactly.

 

[Dyrlege]

Guess I'll have to find a clean card, format, download and install. Those kind of things leave worrying while they're going on....😂

And you are quite right! There certainly is an important element of AI there.
Cheers!

 

[Hermann]

Probably the best tool for viewing EXIF data (and any kind of meta data in all kinds of files) is Phil Harvey's EXIFTool: ExifTool by Phil Harvey It's a tiny but very powerfool tool that extracts all the meta data, unlike e.g. image viewers like the Faststone Image Viewer, that only extracts some meta data. EXIFTool is an offline tool that's regularly updated.

A tip: If you decide to use it, rename one copy of the tool to exiftool(-k -a -u -g1 -w txt).exe. If you draw a file onto the tool, it creates a txt file with all the metadata. You can also draw a folder with many files onto the tool, and it creates txt files for every single image.

Hermann

 

[MiddleRiver]

Thanks for the correct info on magnification.

"Most birder here use focal lengths of 400-600mm to document observations. Some use even longer focal lengths."

Whew! I've used Canon 600 mm f/4 IS and ISII lenses for 14 years. I don't know of any sane person on earth that carries a 600 mm lens while birding... it's absolute insanity due to its size and weight and the absolute need for a heavy tripod and a gimbal. Good luck in the woods carrying a 600 mm lens and a tripod/gimbal looking for birds -- or even in open country in anything but hospitable terrain. Like carrying an anvil.

Even the latest, lightest, 6th generation Canon RF 600 mm ($13,000 USD) is way too cumbersome to be practical for birding. Great for photography, but that's not birding, it's photography. You don't carry a 600 mm lens up to Hawk Mt. (HM) to count raptors -- you use binoculars. And even the much lighter/superb Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II-- a lens I own --would be a handful to carry up to the HM North Lookout.

I routinely carry a FF Sony with 100-400 and usually has the 1.4x attached. Last week I carried it 6mi so I could be sure to document a first-in-state bird. If traveling that sort of distance, I keep in in Lowe pack, where it's pretty easy to deploy quickly. If doing a regular 1-3mi walk, I wear it cross-body.
That said, I hate heavy bins and thus typically have 32FL's with me instead of 42NV's
Anything less than 400mm equiv would be mostly useless to me, unless using a very high MP sensor where crop factor could provide 600-800mm effective.