Review of Bushnell Imageview Digital Camera and Binoculars

Summary

I was recently given a gift certificate to Best Buy for my birthday. I had every intention of wasting it on cartoons (I really wanted seasons 1 and 2 of Futurama on DVD) but I made the mistake of wandering through the camera department. I came across a pair of Bushnell binoculars with a built in digital camera. I debated quite a while; it was only $79 and you generally get what you pay for, but the lure of something so cool won me over and I bought them. (Guess I'll have to wait for the next birthday for Futurama.) Anyway, I wrote up a review in case anyone else is thinking of trying a pair. There are links to sample pictures at the end of the review.

In general, I'm not about to give up my real binoculars or camera, but I think these binoculars are nifty to have around when carrying lots of gear is not an option. I think these will be great for traveling. I really wish I had these when I was climbing in Montana a few years ago; it is really convenient not to have to carry both binoculars and a camera (not to mention film, long lenses, and a tripod.) However, if I was traveling somewhere exotic, there is no way I would leave without my Cannon 35mm and my real binoculars; these can compliment your regular gear but can in no way replace it. You still need to shell out the dough for a good 35mm (or 2+ meg digital) camera and good binoculars.

Details

Good Points:

Price: $79.00, and not having to buy film is a definate plus.
Size: Compact and very light weight. I am used to carrying about 10 pounds of equipment with my camera and attachments and binoculars. This was a really nice relief from that.
Can hold a lot of pictures. I took 44 in high quality mode, I don't know what the limit is. There are two modes, and you can take more in low-quality mode than in high quality.
Action pictures come out surprisingly clean.

Not-So-Good Points:

Picture quality is not great. No one will mistake you for Elliot Porter. Quite a bit of color is lost, although, the advantage of being electronic is that you can Photoshop them.
Adjustability: Despite being a pumpkin head, my eyes are quite close together; I could not get the eye peices close enough together to make it comfortable.
Pictures are not what appears in the binoculars. I expected the pictures to look a lot closer. I think a lot of the shots might have come out just as well with my Cannon 35mm with the 75-300 lens.
You do not have the option of taking pictures of things closer than 20'.
Compatibility: There is no driver for the Mac. I was able to download them to my PC without a problem, but obviously I'd rather be working on my Mac (they are networked, so I was able to get them on the mac easy enough, but for anyone running only on Mac you are out of luck.)

Here are some sample pictures:

Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions or want to try them out.