I came across this on a recent trip to South Africa and I gotta say, it's pretty sweet. Apparently it was created in South Africa and was primarily marketed there but it seems they've opened up a USA based distributor (I pinged them to verify and yes, that's the case.). A friend of mine in South Africa introduced me to it and I couldn't be stopped. Very much "a take my money" moment.
I used to make a lot of videos but found them to suffer from the lack of the point of view that viewers might actually be interested in, the through the reticle shot. I was dissatisfied with a lot of shooting videos for the same reason, no through the reticle shot. Hell, my website even has a blog section called "Through the Reticle" which was meant to show this exact sort of thing but to date never has because I hadn't found a solution this good to the video quality issue.
I never really got anywhere with any through the reticle shots because the phone scope things that exist never seem to fit the phone that I have. I also hated the fact of my phone's low resolution screen being the thing I'm looking through when trying to hit a long range target on film. I own expensive optics with top end glass. Why handicap my eye with an iffy phone screen. That's for the people that watch my videos, not for me while I'm shooting.
It attaches easily enough with an adapter collar and the included tool's Allen key bit. Video is recorded via a clever system of lenses and mirrors so you're actually looking through the thing instead of at it. Mounting is easy, slide the appropriate collar over the ocular bell and snug it up. That's all there is to it. Focusing is done via connecting to the app and spinning a little wheel that's accessed through a screw-cap covered port. The other screw cap conceals the SD card and the USB port and while it appears to be the place you'd put a CR2032 battery, it is not. The battery is internal and charges via USB and has a surprising amount of run time in it.
Optically, it's quite nice. Coated optics and a good color rendition so I didn't lose anything putting it over my US Optics glass. The app was a little hesitant to get to connect to the camera initially but I got it after a couple tries and now it just works and updated versions are much better since that one. It would have been very nice for them to include a manual in the box but I guess they go by the same motto that I do, "A great method to pre-determine if something will work or not is to check and see if it comes with a manual." That said, apparently they took my criticism on that to heart and they now provide a paper manual.
Cost? Yeah, cost is not exceedingly cheap. I paid about $500 US. For that you're getting a heck of a gizmo. It's not ultra light but doesn't weigh enough to be a problem. It compact enough that I won't be bothered by it being on the gun. The best part for me is, I teach long range shooting now and then and now I have a way to actually see in real-time from the shooter's eye view what my students are doing. That is a fantastic diagnostic aid and I know it'll help me in that endeavor. I can usually tell what a student is buggering up by how they're failing in some exercise but sometimes it's a little tough. With reticle video that I can analyze in real time I can help fix those shooter errors early and surely. For hunting guides I see a huge use case for this not only for selecting which animal but also for seeing how steady your shooter is and tuning your hunt to get them into a range that they can accomplish a good shot.
I got some footage of me doing a match (note, someone I showed the unit to before the match started apparently stuck their finger inside it and put a fingerprint smack in the middle which lead to a bit of light blooming here and there. On the video of the deer you can see that that is not normal.
Here's me shooting a match stage.
Here's some Vegan Style Hunting that we did for grins.
I've posted about this on a couple other forums that are more PRS'y and it just occurred to me that benchrest and f-class types might just get a plumped up willy for it too. I can't get enough of mine.
I used to make a lot of videos but found them to suffer from the lack of the point of view that viewers might actually be interested in, the through the reticle shot. I was dissatisfied with a lot of shooting videos for the same reason, no through the reticle shot. Hell, my website even has a blog section called "Through the Reticle" which was meant to show this exact sort of thing but to date never has because I hadn't found a solution this good to the video quality issue.
I never really got anywhere with any through the reticle shots because the phone scope things that exist never seem to fit the phone that I have. I also hated the fact of my phone's low resolution screen being the thing I'm looking through when trying to hit a long range target on film. I own expensive optics with top end glass. Why handicap my eye with an iffy phone screen. That's for the people that watch my videos, not for me while I'm shooting.
It attaches easily enough with an adapter collar and the included tool's Allen key bit. Video is recorded via a clever system of lenses and mirrors so you're actually looking through the thing instead of at it. Mounting is easy, slide the appropriate collar over the ocular bell and snug it up. That's all there is to it. Focusing is done via connecting to the app and spinning a little wheel that's accessed through a screw-cap covered port. The other screw cap conceals the SD card and the USB port and while it appears to be the place you'd put a CR2032 battery, it is not. The battery is internal and charges via USB and has a surprising amount of run time in it.
Optically, it's quite nice. Coated optics and a good color rendition so I didn't lose anything putting it over my US Optics glass. The app was a little hesitant to get to connect to the camera initially but I got it after a couple tries and now it just works and updated versions are much better since that one. It would have been very nice for them to include a manual in the box but I guess they go by the same motto that I do, "A great method to pre-determine if something will work or not is to check and see if it comes with a manual." That said, apparently they took my criticism on that to heart and they now provide a paper manual.
Cost? Yeah, cost is not exceedingly cheap. I paid about $500 US. For that you're getting a heck of a gizmo. It's not ultra light but doesn't weigh enough to be a problem. It compact enough that I won't be bothered by it being on the gun. The best part for me is, I teach long range shooting now and then and now I have a way to actually see in real-time from the shooter's eye view what my students are doing. That is a fantastic diagnostic aid and I know it'll help me in that endeavor. I can usually tell what a student is buggering up by how they're failing in some exercise but sometimes it's a little tough. With reticle video that I can analyze in real time I can help fix those shooter errors early and surely. For hunting guides I see a huge use case for this not only for selecting which animal but also for seeing how steady your shooter is and tuning your hunt to get them into a range that they can accomplish a good shot.
I got some footage of me doing a match (note, someone I showed the unit to before the match started apparently stuck their finger inside it and put a fingerprint smack in the middle which lead to a bit of light blooming here and there. On the video of the deer you can see that that is not normal.
Here's me shooting a match stage.
Here's some Vegan Style Hunting that we did for grins.
I've posted about this on a couple other forums that are more PRS'y and it just occurred to me that benchrest and f-class types might just get a plumped up willy for it too. I can't get enough of mine.
