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When I was a child, mid-September was the time when the holiday photos turned up in the post from the developer. It seems I cannot shake this photographic jetlag in adulthood, as I have only just this week removed the SD card from my camera to look at what I shot in the south of France last month. I’m not very skilled in …

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  1. AndrueC Silver badge
    Meh

    If the image is not a single circle when using binoculars something is wrong. It always slightly irritates me when you see that effect in TV programme's and films. Unless we're supposed to assume that being a hero means never have to adjust your inter-pupilary distance :)

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    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Likewise, in movies when we see footage purportedly taken with a camcorder: '[REC]' flashing in the corner of the screen...

      But still, I've grown to accept that cars will burst into flames when colliding with anything above 5mph.

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    2. emmanuel goldstein
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      even worse....

      the "totally-static-in-the-view" telescopic rifle sight crosshairs. and they zoom too!

      1 0
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: even worse....

        Since we're on the movie bashing, we might as well mention the speed of sound in Hollywood being equivalent to the speed of light... Watch any action film and you'll hear distance explosions as they happen with no delay in the sound.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Unhappy

          Re: even worse....

          Even more annoying, the sound of explosions. In space.

          Kubrick was the last person to get it right. Play some music if you can't bear the silence.

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          1. mark 63 Silver badge
            Reply Icon
            Boffin

            re Kubrick was the last person to get it right

            No he wasnt, Joss whedon was the last one - in Firefly

            3 0
  2. Tom7
    Facepalm

    Timing. Um.

    I assume you'd written this before you head the news this morning?

    Let's see... high-zoom recording binoculars, in the South of France. What could possibly go wrong???

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Timing. Um.

      When I get home I am totally downloading those pictures. Hell yes.

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    2. Alistair Dabbs
      Reply Icon

      Re: Timing. Um.

      Of course, the problem with using heavy binoculars to spy on topless royal trophy wives is that you need both hands.

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      1. garbo
        Reply Icon
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Timing. Um.

        No problem. Get your obliging assistant to pleasure you while you watch. A win-win situation, no?

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    3. John Savard
      Reply Icon

      Re: Timing. Um.

      And I missed the obvious joke about how binoculars which made everything look flat (because their objective lenses were too close together) would have been suboptimal for that particular application...

      0 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    10x optical zoom?

    That's rubbish.

    These are supposed to be designed for seeing things that are far away. That's what binoculars do, right?

    Yet a budget, compact DV camera has 32x optical zoom.

    Digital zoom should always be disabled for capture purposes and it is basically just an unnecessary crop.

    4 4
    1. fridaynightsmoke
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Re: 10x optical zoom?

      I would assume that these binoculars have a significantly longer minimum focal length than a camcorder, therefore the '10x' on these will give you a closer look than '32x' the very wide-angle lens of a camcorder.

      TL,DR: 10x a lot is more than 32x not much.

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    2. Fuzz
      Reply Icon

      Re: 10x optical zoom?

      32x on a camcorder/camera is not the same thing as 32x on binoculars.

      32x zoom on a camcorder means the telephoto end of the zoom lens is 32x the wide angle.

      32x zoom on binoculars would mean that at maximum zoom objects viewed through the binoculars are 32x larger than they would be in real life.

      The two things aren't really comparable.

      Also in this situation the digital zoom is important, the imaging sensor is about 4 megapixels. HD video is around 2 megapixels, that gets you from 10x to 15x without any up-scaling.

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    3. Steve 114
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: 10x optical zoom?

      And for stereo with any zoom, you'd need the optics further apart. At least as far as your own eyes! And further still for a touch of the 'hyperstereo' which is such fun on landscapes with any still camera.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "What it actually feels like, though, is a gigantic View-Master. Now that was a boy’s toy to reckon with."

    Amazing coincidence ... just read an article elsewhere on a list of (US) kids favorite (non-electronic I assume) toys and while GI Joe was up at number 1 with Lego and Barbie close behind I was amazed to see ViewMaster up there in the top 10 ... didn't realize they were still around!

    1 0
    1. Jonathan Richards 1
      Reply Icon
      Go

      1950's bakelite model

      I've still got mine, together with the set of 1958 Brussels World Fair discs that came with it. And, no, you can't have it.

      0 0
  5. Khaptain Silver badge
    Devil

    Royal Approval

    I was considering sending William and Kate a present, do you think this would be suitable........ I will be in France tonight so I must remember and pick up a copy of Closer......

    0 3
    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Royal Approval

      I think it would be eminently suitable, since no amount of "being told" is as good as actually doing.

      If Kate had spent any time playing with this then she might have kept her top on.

      1 1
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I the only one who saw xXx w/ Vin Diesel?

    Because he had a pair just like this, except with the teenage boy dream fullfillment: x-ray vision.

    With that being said, how many moles does your neighbor have on her left cheek?

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    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Am I the only one who saw xXx w/ Vin Diesel?

      Which left cheek?

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  7. Graysonn

    See, what people are forgetting...

    ... is that they are really really cool. It's like night vision goggles. We don't need them, but let's face it, each of us would love them so we can wander around our house with the lights off.

    5 0
  8. Anonymous Coward 15
    Gimp

    This is

    just asking to be used for perverted purposes.

    0 1
    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: This is

      In a way that binoculars and telephoto lenses aren't?

      1 0
  9. Anonymous John

    Re an off-the-shelf directional microphone to match this kind of distance

    A Sky dish and mic may work. Ask the SPB nicely and they might build you one.

    0 0
  10. Rob 5

    Scorpion Stare

    When will the firmware upgrade implementing Scorpion Stare be available?

    5 0
    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Scorpion Stare

      Unfortunately all the companies able to implement it are now either owned by US or Chinese interests or else on the government black list. You gotta face the Elder Gods with bare hands.

      Meanwhile, iPhones with frankly dangerous level of demonological glamour are being pushed at unsuspecting punters. What can one do?

      1 0
  11. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Happy

    Of course

    Real men carry binoculars like these

    2 0
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Real men carry binoculars like these

      They don't carry them any further than the back yard, or flying bridge.

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  12. unitron

    Withholding judgement...

    ...until I see what those neighbors look like.

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  13. Peter Simpson 1
    Thumb Up

    Special Projects Bureau

    Should buy a pair of these for tracking LOHAN...and other unspecified uses

    0 0
  14. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Speaking of teenage boy dream fullfillment,

    ITV4 is repeating the 60s "Batman" and they just got into episodes featuring Batgirl.

    That's if Catwoman, and most of the other headline villains bringing along a floozy of the week, and Aunt Harriet, all passed you by. In which case you may be looking in the wrong place.

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  15. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Any 3D samples?

    As x-eyed stereopairs with different zoom settings?

    0 0
  16. John Savard

    One Problem

    I found one characteristic of these binoculars, visible from the picture of them, to be disappointing.

    Instead of the two objective lenses being as far apart from each other as they can be placed in the case, they're close together in the middle. This reduces the degree to which distant objects - what one normally looks at with binoculars - manifest any stereoscopic effect.

    Of course, it can be argued that distant objectives cause "modelling", an illusion that one is looking at a small-scale model of the real world, instead of at large distant objects, but the point of using binoculars is lost if the two images given to one's two eyes are so nearly identical that one can't perceive any differences in distance in the scene one sees through the stereo effect.

    0 0
  17. Neonin
    Coffee/keyboard

    Darth Vader

    "Whinging teen snotrag"

    You, sir, owe me a new keyboard!

    0 0
  18. Michael Habel
    Boffin

    How does it far aganst the Night?

    Could One perhaps use this to view some Planets and or Constellations with this thing?

    Or would there not be enough light to engage the CCDs on this thing?

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    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Windows

      Re: How does it far aganst the Night?

      I suspect not, plus the noise fromthe ccds might be too great. Most astrophotgraphy using ccd detectors hung off telescopes uses frame stacking (signal adds, noise is different in each frame and tends not to add, so s/n ratio gain).

      Don't take my word for it though. I'm one of those strange people who think that the royal couple should be left alone.

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      1. keithpeter Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: How does it far aganst the Night?

        PS; the Moon terminator might be a giggle though. Plenty of light.

        0 0
  19. Mephistro

    X-ray? night vision? That's crap!

    Forget about all that outdated tech and fit these things with a Terahertz radar system.

    0 0
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