Maybe I expected too much

Thought I would take a chance on this being better than the 10x25 original 11-1025 VGA model. I really haven't messed around with it that much but so far my advice is keep your expectations in line or you will be disappointed.

Binoculars - OK but surprisingly there were some issues. I had hard time twisting the fine focus for the right eye (diopter adjustment). Seemed quite sticky unless I twisted it at the very end of the eyecup. The bigger problem was that the camera unit in the middle takes up too much room. Because of this, I could not squeeze the lenses together quite close enough for total field viewing in both eyes simultaneously. There is 2.5 inches center to center on between the viewing lenses when they are both right next to the camera unit. This seemed like enough until I saw only 3/4 of the image in one eye. Guess I need plastic surgery.

Software - I was able to load the software and download pictures into it without much trouble. Plug the unit in, choose transfer from E: and a few clicks later, you have pictures on your PC. The drivers provided are not needed unless you are running Windows 98, but I had no problems even though I did load them on my 2000 machine. The software is not that hard to use. I think it's a bit more of a search than it should be to find the editing functions.

Camera - Being that Bushnell is not a digital camera company, they skip everything related to it except for the pixels and the magnification. There is nothing more on their homepage so you don't really know what you are getting. I took some pics with the high resolution mode of 1280x1024 (default) in strong sunlight and they turn out fairly clear with just a little fuzziness around the outside. There is a little graininess on full screen resolution due to the 1.3 megapixels, but that's to be expected. From various shots I took, objects had to be about 75 feet away before I could get what I considered a clear picture without the foreground being blurred. Also, in medium/lower light conditions, things got blurry in a hurry. These last two may be related to the fixed 8x magnification of the camera.

In my opinion, there is some value to having this combo together. It's a nice buy it if you want the convenience of viewing and take pictures of grand views of the great outdoors together (on bright days). Otherwise, do your homework and think about what your needs are. It is a compromise between the two functions and Bushnell itself does not claim this to be a do-it-all device.

As for me, I'm opting to return mine since plastic surgery is a bit out of my budget.