New AX Visio 10x32 binocular (2 Viewers)

[lmans66]

This has been discussed around here in the past and like it or not, I'm pretty certain it's the future - which has arrived. Some had speculated leica (with their camera experience) would be the first to pull it off but it looks like Swaro is diving-in headfirst.

It's funny... right now it has ZERO appeal to me. But I remember when I was still clinging to my film cameras and looking back, there's NO WAY i'd go back now that I'm using mirrorless 61MP and incredible software, stabilization, subject recognition, etc. I'm still nostalgic for the smell of darkroom chemicals and until very recently had held on to my 1935 vintage Leica RF camera, but realistically... I've moved on.

Will I be giving up my Retrovids in a couple of years? Dunno...

I am with you....it is the future....we can all see that and I saw this 5 years ago..... so that future has arrived and will only perfect itself. I too thought that Leica would be the first. Hopefully they are not like Kodak where they had the upper hand in the progression of cameras but blew it.... Hopefully Leica will actually come out with a product.

This too, as you have....has zero appeal to me. I do have my darkroom.....I do have my 1930 Leica Model 1A camera, along with a ton of other film cameras. And no....I will not be giving up my retrovids.....!!! jim

 

[Ted Y.]

what skills I ask.....what skills....?

The important ones:

earned to bird by habitat, general feel, mannerisms of the bird etc...

how to creep up on a bird, walk slowly and silently and pause often, not walking with the wind...slowly drawing my binoculars up etc. So, a skill.

The tools evolve and our tools related skills change also. Nothing stops you to "resist" the change, if you want.

 

[pppppvvvv]

Your simply statement stated so much....'digitally assisted birding era....' or is that 'digital birding era' as the 'assist' part , is the birding part.

And thus the potential demise of knowing how to bird, using your own birding knowledge, skill etc.... Yes, a step that was bound to occur as I predicted this years back. But just take a moment to think of how birding 'used to be' and how far we have come ....good or bad as there are both sides of the debate.

1. Just think when my dad was a bird watcher in college in the 1950's.... he used a Peterson book in Black and White and learned to bird by habitat, general feel, mannerisms of the bird etc... And yes, he had that field guide and yes he had a binocular of sorts based upon 1950 technology. So that in itself was an improvement of others prior to him.
   
   
2. When I came along as a birder I had better binoculars, a colored and more up-to-date field guide and like my dad, I learned how to bird. That means I learned how to creep up on a bird, walk slowly and silently and pause often, not walking with the wind...slowly drawing my binoculars up etc. So, a skill. As I progressed into birding, I turned to my Canon Rebel with a 300mm lens and eventually a 400mm. Wow.... good stuff. But I still used the same skills for birding. I went into digiscoping with a 80mm lens and improvised my attachments and used cheap point and shoots....Wow....I enjoyed it. But I still used the same skills to bird.
   
   
3. Binoculars, prior to this 'new digital' ....got about as far as physics took them. Nice bins...the NL, SF...the Leica's.... But they still had birding skills built within.
   
   
4. But wait...what happened....? Cameras that had some form of AI that followed birds in flight....long 600-800 lens which were easy to use... large digiscoping scopes that had pre-made attachments and now full frame camera's attached etc... A loss of birding skills in my thinking started to occur.
   
   
5. Now with digital bins....what skills will even be needed....? Essentially 'point and shoot'.... aim bins, press some button, have the binocular focus, name the bird from a distance.... take a picture (this will improve thru time I am sure) .... ..... what skills I ask.....what skills....?

Yeah but progress won't stop when you or I start to get a bit dewy eyed about some golden age!
You'll still be much better with your accrued knowledge and fieldcraft no matter what technology you are given. It's just that beginners will rely on the advanced tech more heavily.

 

[Patudo]

Interesting (in the general sense - not really to me myself) concept. I agree some companies catering to the birding market were bound to experiment with more integration (of optics and electronics). Like MiddleRiver's pic in post #90 this does strike me as very much a first or second step. No doubt improvements will come if the demand is there. I'm not totally sure it is personally (had similar reservations about the DG), but Swaro must have done some market research before making the investment in design and production.

I think the concept of a binocular that can take photos/video is attractive - I have certainly at times wished I could capture some of the sights I've seen through my binoculars - and I suppose if is combined with ID capabilities that would be a plus to the upcoming more tech savvy generation. But those capabilities probably need to be packaged into something more handy and offering some kind of image stabilization. The real breakthrough may well come from a corporation like eg. Apple - which have tech and financial resources far exceeding any company focused on optics.

@lman66 - I'd imagine previous generations have been bewailing the loss of "skill" since the bow replaced the spear. Heck, the old-timers who hunted with bone spear points probably grunted something about "it takes no skill" when flint points came along... You can still hunt with bow and arrow today (at least in the U.S.) and I'm sure plenty of folks will continue birding with traditional binoculars. I have to plead guilty to checking birds I saw while visiting California on the internet. My god, the loss of skill...

 

[MiddleRiver]

I am with you....it is the future....we can all see that and I saw this 5 years ago..... so that future has arrived and will only perfect itself. I too thought that Leica would be the first. Hopefully they are not like Kodak where they had the upper hand in the progression of cameras but blew it.... Hopefully Leica will actually come out with a product.

This too, as you have....has zero appeal to me. I do have my darkroom.....I do have my 1930 Leica Model 1A camera, along with a ton of other film cameras. And no....I will not be giving up my retrovids.....!!! jim

LOl... I have one Voigtlander left but sold off everything including 8x10 (wood) view camera. Do I miss it? Suuure. But my digital darkroom is pretty amazing as are my mirrorless cameras/lenses.

Being a bit of a Luddite, I'll still be rocking Retrovids or at least conventional bins, until they pry them from my cold hands. But I can see acquiring something with IS, thermal, or other 'smart' features (like the AX) once the technology matures. One note about the tech: what's appealing (to a Luddite) about 'old school' is durability and repair-ability. Once the tech becomes like phones, where they need to be replaced every couple of years, I start to have issues - both ethical and environmental, as well as practical. The fact that my 25yr old Leica bins could be serviced, makes me upgrade/update with another Leica.
If that ability disappears, I have issues ...

 

[MiddleRiver]

In a few years you'll probably be able to buy a drone/robot with all of this technology integrated so you don't actually have to go out and look at anything anymore. It will report back to you what you could've seen had you been bothered to get up and leave the house.

https://mybirdbuddy.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=12497949570&utm_content=122631856447&utm_term=bird%20buddy&gadid=504566274156&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwP6sBhDAARIsAPfK_waGFp4Lzt8q2OHu5dEKFHlndmCBe7G6EidtXHLiXJ-5-yWrcGpztMcaAvaYEALw_wcB

 

[etudiant]

Your simply statement stated so much....'digitally assisted birding era....' or is that 'digital birding era' as the 'assist' part , is the birding part.

And thus the potential demise of knowing how to bird, using your own birding knowledge, skill etc.... Yes, a step that was bound to occur as I predicted this years back. But just take a moment to think of how birding 'used to be' and how far we have come ....good or bad as there are both sides of the debate.

1. Just think when my dad was a bird watcher in college in the 1950's.... he used a Peterson book in Black and White and learned to bird by habitat, general feel, mannerisms of the bird etc... And yes, he had that field guide and yes he had a binocular of sorts based upon 1950 technology. So that in itself was an improvement of others prior to him.
   
   
2. When I came along as a birder I had better binoculars, a colored and more up-to-date field guide and like my dad, I learned how to bird. That means I learned how to creep up on a bird, walk slowly and silently and pause often, not walking with the wind...slowly drawing my binoculars up etc. So, a skill. As I progressed into birding, I turned to my Canon Rebel with a 300mm lens and eventually a 400mm. Wow.... good stuff. But I still used the same skills for birding. I went into digiscoping with a 80mm lens and improvised my attachments and used cheap point and shoots....Wow....I enjoyed it. But I still used the same skills to bird.
   
   
3. Binoculars, prior to this 'new digital' ....got about as far as physics took them. Nice bins...the NL, SF...the Leica's.... But they still had birding skills built within.
   
   
4. But wait...what happened....? Cameras that had some form of AI that followed birds in flight....long 600-800 lens which were easy to use... large digiscoping scopes that had pre-made attachments and now full frame camera's attached etc... A loss of birding skills in my thinking started to occur.
   
   
5. Now with digital bins....what skills will even be needed....? Essentially 'point and shoot'.... aim bins, press some button, have the binocular focus, name the bird from a distance.... take a picture (this will improve thru time I am sure) .... ..... what skills I ask.....what skills....?

The main appeal of birding for the vast majority of people is that it gets one out of the house and into nature. Looking at birds is the excuse used.
Swaros new glass enhances that experience even for the very casual birder, they get to identify what they see.
If costs can be brought down fairly rapidly, I'd expect the technology to become routine in just a few years.
It is certain that this proliferation of electronic assistants cuts the gap between the skilled and the casual birder, but that is not a bad thing. London taxi drivers used to be required to acquire 'the knowledge', a mental map of London, but the emergence of GPS driven maps made that unnecessary.
Making bird identification routinely available is similarly a step forward. It does not impair the utility of the balance of birding skills, rather the contrary.

 

[iseegeorgesstar]

How seamless is the recording feature on the device? I like being immersed in the view. Would having to stop and turn on the camera remove me from my viewing experience and/or contribute to me missing something out in the field?

 

[Mono]

There is a good feature run though here...

It is good to see that it doesn't need to be connected to a phone to work. All the processing is done in the unit. It is loaded with Merlin with all the bird packs, 10,000 species. The mammal ID app only does Europe and North America.

All the promotional stuff seems to be aimed at the travelling birder. A way to id birds in far flung places.

 

[Grando]

The main appeal of birding for the vast majority of people is that it gets one out of the house and into nature. Looking at birds is the excuse used.
Swaros new glass enhances that experience even for the very casual birder, they get to identify what they see.
If costs can be brought down fairly rapidly, I'd expect the technology to become routine in just a few years.
It is certain that this proliferation of electronic assistants cuts the gap between the skilled and the casual birder, but that is not a bad thing. London taxi drivers used to be required to acquire 'the knowledge', a mental map of London, but the emergence of GPS driven maps made that unnecessary.
Making bird identification routinely available is similarly a step forward. It does not impair the utility of the balance of birding skills, rather the contrary.

Interestingly, prospective London black-cab taxi drivers still need to pass The Knowledge, despite the advent of sat nav.

 

[lmans66]

In my initial comments (post #80)...I did state.. ' But just take a moment to think of how birding 'used to be' and how far we have come ....good or bad as there are both sides of the debate."....

So I am not stating that this shift to digital binoculars with all the frills is bad altogether, but yes I am still pointing out that there is a loss of a certain skill set or bank of knowledge by doing so. Whether that is good or bad depends on your needs, desires...your current birding skills, etc etc.... No right, no wrong....only what fits for you.

But let's look into this just a bit more......

IE...if I could talk to my dad now, as he is passed....during his lifetime, he gladly accepted newer binocular technology, and he loved the colored bird field guides etc.... and in his shifting from a pure BW Field guide (where he had to bird by bird pattern, habitat, environment, mannerisms) and having to reply upon poor binocular technology....I can remember him stating to me a certain loss of a skill set that came with the poorer tools available to him earlier on in his life. But one key difference is that during his shift from older tools (older binoculars and Black and White bird guides for instance), he still was reliant upon a certain bird watching skill set that one had to learn in order to bird watch effectively. This skill set includes knowing how to creep up on a bird, perhaps knowing the wind direction, walking silently, pausing....and using honed skills such as understanding bird behavior, mannerisms, habitat etc... They were still evident.

With myself, being a generation after, but relying upon better binoculars, nice field guides etc.... and even when I got into early digital cameras for bird ID such as the ever popular super zoom cameras, or birding with a 300 or 400 mm lens etc..... My skills were still honed and based upon an understanding of bird behavior, mannerism, habitat, etc....

Fast forward.....keep on going....fast forward.....and a bit more...fast forward..... Now, what do you have? You have new birders coming into the world who now don't need a field guide to attempt to use skills to ID, and the skills of ID'ing a bird by bird behavior, bird patterns and silhouette, mannerisms, habitat. You have potential new birders who might flock gladly to this new binocular technology who will never attempt to gleam basic birding skills such as how to creep up on a bird, go against the wind, pause...slowly move forward.... They simply pull up their binoculars from a distance, press a button....the technology tells them what the bird is, it locks in focus ....etc etc..... A giant loss of skills lost.

A giant step forward? Or simply a newer digital age where we actually lose skill and knowledge but still call themselves as birders because they have the technology that allows them to bird, as opposed to the actual human brain-power.... ?

 

[lmans66]

I am going to promote an author...and in this link, a link to a birding store located in South New Jersey USA.... where the extremely knowledgable birder Pete Dunne lives within and is the author of this book...

Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion

In this book, bursting with more information than any field guide could hold, the well-known author and birder Pete Dunne introduces readers to the "Cape May School of Birding."

featheredgeoptics.org

As he states.... "

It's an approach to identification that gives equal or more weight to a bird's structure and shape and the observer's overall impression (often called GISS, for General Impression of Size and Shape) than to specific field marks.​

After determining the most likely possibilities by considering such factors as habitat and season, the birder uses characteristics such as size, shape, color, behavior, flight pattern, and vocalizations to identify a bird. The book provides an arsenal of additional hints and helpful clues to guide a birder when, even after a review of a field guide, the identification still hangs in the balance."​

This is what I am getting at....a loss of knowledge or I might add...a never found body of knowledge by many, even older birders.

 

[etudiant]

In my initial comments (post #80)...I did state.. ' But just take a moment to think of how birding 'used to be' and how far we have come ....good or bad as there are both sides of the debate."....

So I am not stating that this shift to digital binoculars with all the frills is bad altogether, but yes I am still pointing out that there is a loss of a certain skill set or bank of knowledge by doing so. Whether that is good or bad depends on your needs, desires...your current birding skills, etc etc.... No right, no wrong....only what fits for you.

But let's look into this just a bit more......

IE...if I could talk to my dad now, as he is passed....during his lifetime, he gladly accepted / used newer binocular technology, and he loved the colored bird field guides etc.... and in his shifting from a pure BW Field guide (where he had to bird by bird pattern, habitat, environment, mannerisms) and having to reply upon poor binocular technology....I can remember him stating to me a certain loss of a skill set that came with the poorer tolls available to him earlier on in his life. But one key difference is that during his shift from older tools (binoculars and bird guides for instance), he still was reliant upon a certain bird watching skill set that one had to learn in order to bird watch effectively. This skill set includes knowing how to creep up on a bird, perhaps knowing the wind direction, walking silently, pausing....and using honed skills such as understanding bird behavior, mannerisms, habitat etc... They were still evident.

With myself, being a generation after, but relying upon better binoculars, nice field guides etc.... and even when I got into early digital cameras for bird ID such as the ever popular super zoom cameras, or birding with a 300 or 400 mm lens etc..... My skills were still honed and based upon an understanding of bird behavior, mannerism, habitat, etc....

Fast forward.....keep on going....fast forward.....and a bit more...fast forward..... Now, what do you have. You have new birders coming into the world who now don't need a field guide and the skills of ID'ing a bird by bird behavior, bird patterns and silhouette, mannerisms, habitat. You have potential new birders who might flock gladly to this new binocular technology who will never attempt to gleam basic birding skills such as how to creep up on a bird, go against the wind, pause...slowly move forward.... They simply pull up their binoculars from a distance, press a button....the technology tells them what the bird is, it locks in focus ....etc etc..... A giant loss of skills lost.

A giant step forward? Or simply a newer digital age where we actually lose skill and knowledge but still call themselves as birders because they have the technology that allows them to bird, as opposed to the actual human brain-power.... ?

The field craft you highlight is also used by hunters and is certainly a valuable part of really entering the world of animals and of nature.
It was certainly more of an essential for birding when the tools were basic than it is today. Still, in most cases it is not essential.
Birding on a pelagic, on a sea watch or even on a stroll down a forest path does not call on those skills, but still can make use of the new electronic assists.
So the new gear increases the capabilities of the novice or casual birder, they don't constrain the more experienced and skilled practitioners.
I think that should be cheered, not deplored

 

[Ted Y.]

A giant step forward? Or simply a newer digital age where we actually lose skill and knowledge but still call themselves as birders because they have the technology that allows them to bird, as opposed to the actual human brain-power.... ?

The same thing happened with the bunch of new photographers using the cell phone but not a camera.
The "old school" continued to exist and activate, the "new ones" just added up.
The camera using skills (the photo related ones, not how to push the button) are not lost for the "old school" people.

 

[etudiant]

Interestingly, prospective London black-cab taxi drivers still need to pass The Knowledge, despite the advent of sat nav.

Seems the regulatory apparatus takes its time to recognize technological change. Or perhaps it is now just a tool to limit the cab numbers.

 

[Mono]

The main criticism here seems to be that these will encourage people "to do birding wrong."

 

[pppppvvvv]

The main criticism here seems to be that these will encourage people "to do birding wrong."

Well it makes a change from Swarovski telling us we are going about our hobby wrong because we dare to use a single scope and binocular, instead of having their entire range stashed in the boots of our cars for use depending on whether we are hiking up a mountain, viewing waders from the car park, birding in sunshine or dusk, or twitching urban peregrines after taking in the opera!

I'm aware that was a long sentence

 

[dwatsonbirder]

The main criticism here seems to be that these will encourage people "to do birding wrong."

There is already a significant issue with a certain subset of photographers who "do photography wrong" and this has very real implications on the welfare of the bird, not to mention the social impact those with all the gear and no idea have on others enjoyment of the natural world. Technology such as this just perpetuates the issue, and though the counter argument is that it is democratising bird/other identification, it is only available to the privileged few with money to burn... otherwise it is ultimately regressive, and indicative of technology dumbing down society...

 

[lmans66]

There is already a significant issue ........... otherwise it is ultimately regressive, and indicative of technology dumbing down society...

Agreed.... the dumbing down of society only continues with the reliance upon technology advancement and chip bit usage... ....bit by bit (pun intended)...

the good news is that like film cameras, when digital came about....one could early on purchase film cameras real cheap as everyone was dumping their film to go digital. Eventually, as tech binoculars are more mainstream, which they will be.... us old timers can jump on some pretty cheap non digital binoculars.

 

[limonabe]