I have been seeing the 8x and 10x versions of these combination binocular/digital cameras offered for sale for maybe a year or so. Kept thinking that there was no way I could hold them still enough to get an unblurred picture with the 8 powered set...let alone the 10x combination.

Finally happened on the 10x25s on sale for $39 and decided to give them a chance.

Seems the binocular part is pretty decent...with a reasonably clear view...with not too much blurring at the edges.

The camera part is...surprisingly...lined up with the binoculars...so what you see is what you get in the pic...more or less.

As far a getting an unblurred picture...of maybe 20 pics taken...only 3 or 4 were blurred...even though the binocular view was moving around quite a bit...a 10 power view is difficult to hold still without a solid mount.

The pics are not exceedingly detailed at 10X...but are acceptable.

Did have issues with the time it takes for the picture to be taken...seems the camera can wait a while...and it may have locked up once. Found that this was partially my fault in that parts of the menu options require 2 clicks before the camera is ready to take a pic.

There is also an option to use a video mode where you can capture about 2 1/2 minutes worth of low res video.

There is a 640x480 low res pic mode...and also a 2x digital mode where the overall magnification is 20x. Plus a 10 sec timer.

XP might not like the unsigned software. The 16 MB camera memory acts like a thumb drive...you can simply copy the pics to a folder on your computer.

The camera comes with (4) alkaline AAA batteries installed...but they were not making contact...so I put a set of recognized brand batteries in...you do need to be CAREFUL to get these in correctly and in the right polarity.

So for the $ involved...it's a pretty cool thing to play with.

Now I need to find some wildlife that will hold still for a while. ;-)

UPDATE: After using this binoc-camera for a while...I've found that the problems I was having with the camera locking up were not all in my head. It will do this now and then for no discernable reason when recording a pic...one time I even found that the batteries were warm from putting out a fair amount of current. So...now if it locks up...I open the battery compartment and free up one of the batteries...letting the camera discharge. No other real problems except this one...but am downrating it for this reason.

2nd UPDATE: Now found that the installation of the camera was faulty. The manual states that it does not need to be installed into XP...but XP won't recognize it if it isn't.

But if you simply connect the USB cable and it isn't recognized...then you will have to uninstall it thru Device Manager before doing things right.

So with XP...DO NOT connect the camera 1st. I started the Ad Hardware dialogue...connected the USB cable when asked to...and then installed the software when asked...XP won't like the unsigned driver...but I'm now having no problems. You also might be able to install the software BEFORE connecting the camera...as needed with previous Windows versions.

Final UPDATE: The camera still works...but the pics are fuzzy now...probably due to an overheated sensor array? My guess is that either the autoshutoff doesn't work...the ON button gets pushed on when the camera is in the case...or the SAVE function locks up the camera during the save process. The camera did not shutoff and froze in the save process....batteries even got warm. I took the camera apart and now use the binocs without it....good binocs.

A sour lemon opinion? Pics were not that good or useful in the first place...mainly a novelty. Fun while it lasted.

Sure hate to keep changing my mind...but the rating is now DOWN again.....

Recommended: No