New toys for the wildlife

Recently, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I had to get a decent pair of binoculars. I used to have three pairs; one was a compact pair, one was a normal size but very bright and made them excellent for low light levels and one pair that was a zoom with both high magnification but bright as well. However, as an ex of mine had been an alcoholic, she disposed of them for the price of a drink or two, hence my need to get something decent again.

So I looked on Ebay, and while I saw many that were cheep, I wanted to be sure that I didn’t end up with cheep and nasty ones either. I also noticed that there were many that also have a digital camera built in. While I was interested, I was also concerned that the quality of both the camera and the binoculars would be compromised. However after a couple of unsuccessful bids on normal binoculars, I was successful on a pair that has a camera built in.

I must say that the binoculars are actually better than I expected, and quite bright, brighter than most compact ones. And while the blurb on the box says that they are ideal for wildlife, I have used better, but unless I suddenly find that I can afford the best quality ones, they will serve me well, as binoculars that is.

The camera part is useful, but doesn’t even match the focal length of the binoculars. T the binoculars being an eight times magnification the camera is at best only five times. Also as with so much electronic equipment it is full of bleeps with every operation, making it nearly useless for anything to do with wildlife.

I have tested it out, and it has some uses as the picture above of a moorhen shows, but I will not be expecting to create anything spectacular with them. But who knows, I may just be surprised myself one day. Though it is in helping to gain a positive identification that it can be most useful. As this picture of a House Martin shows, I was being told that the birds were swallows, yet by getting the picture and checking in a field guide it was clear that it’s a House Martin.