Sony DEV-3 Digital Recording Binoculars, Black

Finally a HD video camera with eyepiece viewfinder that can be used outdoors in the sunlight and see what you are shooting.Most of my video is capturing radio control models in flight or racing around a course and this binocular camera works so much better than a flip out viewfinder as found on most of today's cameras.

Sure, while some may say a cheaper video camera does the same thing, that is not the case... This product is geared to spectators. Those wanting to watch a race, kids playing on the field, birds or in my case airplanes!The feel of this product in your hands is solid. Like a heavy pair of binoculars but solid.Controls are easy to find and the video and picture quality is second to none as far as I am concerned.So why did I not give it five stars... No lens or eye viewer covers.... and no chance of finding them - if someone has please let me know.... Also, would suggest providing some sort of cheaper carry case being that we did pay a good chunk of change for the product.Besides that, great product for me - heading to the runway right now!

hope to use this for getting close up of animals in parks. It takes great pictures, and the zoom is better than I figured it would be. A bit heavyer and a bit bulky, but it will do the job I want.

I have had several pairs of video recording binoculars over the years. All of them were essentially toys. The Sony is the first pair of any real value. The image quality is great. Not SLR Quality, but on par with the best consumer hand held video cameras. As a camera, the pictures are also fantastic. Battery life is pretty good, but I did buy the extended capacity battery.For the down sides, first is the price. Guess being the first out there with serious performance has a price tag associated with it. The difference between the DEV-3 and DEV-5/5K are not justified. Also, very low light perfromace in video mode could be better.If your looking for a good carrying case, LOWEPRO makes a "Field" case for binoculars. The LOWEPRO case hold the binoculars and an extra battery.I would reccomend these to others.

I got the DEV-3 from a different site, but do most of my electronics research from reading amazon opinions. Although it comes with proprietary software, you can view the video shot in Windows Media and the photos are in jpeg format both of which are a big deal to me. I bought the binos for surveillance and I can read a license plate from about 100 yards away, even at dusk. Although the product states you can see in low light, it definitely is not night vision. The video eats up memory like crazy. A 12 minute video shot in 3D is about 2.3 GB. The nice thing about this product is, when you are shooting continuous video it breaks it into 2 GB segments so you don't have to worry about a file that is too large when you want to burn it to a DVD. The auto adjust and stabilizers are a great feature on this. I took snap shot of a person about 75 yards way riding on a golf cart (going about 6 mph) and it was such high quality, you would be able to identify him from the photo. There was no blurriness and the facial shot came out great.Unlike the DEV-5, the DEV-3 does not come with a lens cover or eye cups, which is silly (Sony trying to justify the extra $600). The lens is a large surface area and without a lens cover I worry about scratching it. When you are looking into the eye pieces, you can see the reflection of your eyes without the eye cups. The product is shipped with a cheap eye piece cover. At the end of usage, the eye pieces have to be adjusted or the cover doesn't slide properly over the eye pieces. As of today (12/4/11) Sony does not sell these lens cover or the eye cups (they told me to call back in 1 month and see). The DEV-3 also does not come with a carrying case. If you plan to abuse it like i do, i recommend the Pelican 1500 carrying case due to the depth and durability. It's a little more expensive but offers a piece of mind for an expensive electronics deviceThe nice thing is that it accepts a sony hd pro-duo flash card and a sdhc card (half the price). I tested both of them and i can't tell a quality difference. I also can't tell a transfer rate difference when you burn it to your hard drive. I am sure there are technical geeks out there to dispute this but i am just writing my observations. So save your money and go to the sdhc (about 1/2 the price). Also unlike on a camera there is no zoom toggle switch on the binos to zoom in on a particular picture you just shot. (maybe there is and i have not found it)I wish they would sell the binos in a local store so i can see if the 20X zoom is worth the extra $600. The 10X zoom is nice, but leaves you wanting a little more, however I would buy these again as i think they are worth the money.