Wombat through a Looking Glass

[tdw]

I notice this for sale in the SailNet store. Night vision has great appeal to me. even basic binoculars give better vision than standard in all but complete darkness so I'm wondering if these gizmos would be a good idea.

Anyone have any experience ?



BUSHNELL 4X40MM EQUINOX DIGITAL NIGHT VISION - 260440


Secondly,

Whats the word on image stabilised binoculars. Obviously they are bloody wonderful things to have but does anyone have any opinions on brands models etc.

Omatako .. Andre you mentioned some time back that you had a pair. What did you go with ?

[CapnRon47]

TDW,
I have the Canon 10X30 IS and they are great. They are small, reasonably light weight, the batteries last a long time, easy to use and work. They help in reading markers and can also be used at night for star gazing. They stabilize based on accelerometers in the unit and (I believe) have liquid adjusting prisms that respond quickly to any motion. I am 64 and find them very useful in these applications.

A night vision system would also seem to be very useful. The technology is pretty mature, so I would not be concerned about that, but you should find a store where you can try them out and satisfy yourself they are comfortable to use.

regards,
Ron

[tdw]

Capn, thanks for that. Mates of ours have the Canon 10*30s and they are a fine thing to use. My only concern is the waterproofing (or lack thereof). The Canon 10*42s are waterproof and twice the price.

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by tdw

Omatako .. Andre you mentioned some time back that you had a pair. What did you go with ?

Andrew, I opted for 15x50 stabilised Canon because the magnification at 15 is huge and without stabilisation it is just to powerful and hard to hold an image.

But when stabilised they are terrific. Not cheap but getting better all the time, now available for about US$1000. You can of course get them with compass and range finders and all the tricks but the $$$ add up fast.

Don't know about night vision, never tried them, never really thought I'd have a reason to need it. I happen to have superb night vision of my own

[Cruisingdad]

Fuzzy - here is what you need. THey come in rodent sizes too.

[billyruffn]

Several years ago I bought a 1st generation monocular that looks a lot like the one in the first post. It was of Russian origin. It's more of a toy than anything else -- if you have a high power IR source it would be more useful, but the range of the IR from the unit isn't great -- ie. I can see the tell tales on the leach of the main and the windex at the mast head, and the froth on waves 40-50 feet off the beam, but that's about it. Using the true night vision (no IR) it's disappointing -- brilliant moonlight is good, ink bottle black assed nights, not so good.

Maybe I haven't worked with it enough and experimented with using it with flash light illumination.....but....If I was doing it again...I'd spend the money on something else -- or I'd go whole hog and buy a 3rd generation system.