Bushnell Image View 10x25 Binocular

Comments about Bushnell Image View 10x25 Binocular:

Compact and durable, used often for boating and kayaking with good results.

Comments about Bushnell Image View 10x25 Binocular:

Using this camera binoculars in my efforts to document the existence of an elusive black Florida Panther. Perfect for use in Tate's Swamp in panhandle.

Comments about Bushnell Image View 10x25 Binocular:

A binocular camera sounds like a great idea, but this model is neither a good camera nor a good pair of binoculars. Look for something else!

The Bushnell website says this has 8MB of built in memory, which is enough to take only a handfull of pictures. In my case, the unit wouldn't even turn on unless I put in an SD card. The printed manual is incomplete; you have to go to the Bushnell website to download the full version, and I found even that incomplete. Among other things, it didn't shed any light on the error code I was getting. When I called Bushnell directly, the support person didn't seem to know what the advertised features were and could only suggest I buy an SD card (it doesn't come with batteries or a memory card). Fortunately I found an old camera with a card in it and the unit finally worked.

However, pictures were awful -- very dark, poor color, and of course only 1.3 megapixels of resolution. What's worse, the camera lens seemed to be aimed wrong, because it consistently cut off the bottom third of the picture, showing me instead areas at the top that weren't visible in the viewfinder.

Finally, when I tried to download the photos to my computer, it failed again. Granted I have an Apple iMac, but the manual and website both state it should work on a Mac. I had to take the SD card out, put it back in my camera, and download it from there.

My regular digital camera is a point-and-shoot Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TZ3. It's both lighter and smaller than the Bushnell 111026, though in fairness, it was certainly more expensive than the Bushnell when I bought it a few years ago. However, pictures taken with the LUMIX and the Bushnell unit simply do not compare. After seeing the pictures side-by-side, I would NEVER take a picture with the Bushnell binocular camera. The LUMIX series has a 10X lens on it, so it's very comparable to the magnification of the Bushnell unit, but the pictures are so much larger, brighter, and more colorful, that there's no reason I would ever use the Bushnell.

The binoculars have a very small field of view and dark lenses. Although the binoculars will focus on an object about 12 feet away, the camera can't focus on anything closer than 35 feet. That means if you take a picture of anything between 12' and 35', it will end up blurry.

Just because the Bushnell 111026 is both a pair of binoculars and a camera doesn't mean it does either well. I would return it if I could, but I selected it as a service anniversary gift for working 10 years at my company. I should have gotten the watch!

Comments about Bushnell Image View 10x25 Binocular:

view & take pictures of ducks birds and the beauties that walk around the lake.
i get a much better view of what i enjoy watching.
i have a hard time holding it still enough to see and take good pictures.