Wildlife Photography with Tactical Four Reticle Sight

[c230k]

The addition of a scope makes tracking a small or moving target very easy and quick, like birds in flight or aircraft. Has anyone tried this scope?

 

 

 

Thanks

Tom :cool:

[awboater]

What a great idea.

 

They are actually called holographic diffraction sights, but unlike a traditional scope, they do not magnify, so their range might be limited.

 

They employ a laser that is displayed on the screen, but not projected down-range. This allows you to keep everything aligned even if you are not exactly looking into the sight at the right angle.

 

I have one, but it is for more "traditional use", and they work surprisingly well. But I don't see why it could not be used.

 

The only down-side I see is there is a parallax error. The issue is that if you extend the "aiming" point of both the lens and sight, they normally intersect at some point down-range, whether it be 100yds or whatever. The sight is adjustable to accommodate this. This means you would be constantly re-adjusting the sight depending on the distance.

 

However, if you adjusted the sight so that it remains parallel to the lens, then you would only have a 4" or so error (the vertical distance between the sight and lens). This would work find for big things like aircraft, but small birds might not be centered exactly.

 

And the other issue is that the sight is non-magnifying, so the range would be limited.

 

Still, it is a cool idea, and worthy of trying. There are several companies that make them. Mine is an inexpensive made-in-China version called "Sight-Mark" Dunham's has them on sale periodically for $40, which is where I bought mine.

 

B&H even has them... which made me scratch my head, until I saw this... so now I know why.

 

But then you would need some kind of adapter between the hot-shoe and sight. I did a search on "Weaver hot shoe adapter" and found that B&H even carries one - so this I suppose is something quite a few people have done.

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/877879-REG/Firefield_ff19003_Weaver_Camera_Adapter.html

 

I want one. I have shot several air shows, and it is pretty hard to track the aircraft with a telephoto lens. Methinks this would work.

[c230k]

Thanks for your input as always, your right, for the money it's worth a try. Here is the site.

http://gadget.brando.com/wildlife-photography-with-tactical-four-reticle-sight_p1341c73d3.html

[zackiedawg]

I know a few other birders who have tried these for their bird-in-flight shooting in particular, as they were having some difficulty tracking when adapting to electronic viewfinder cameras. They said it helped, but as far as I know most were shooting primarily larger birds like herons and gulls, which are slower and easier to track anyway. I'm not sure how useful this type of thing would be for the small fast targets like swallows and martins, since it doesn't magnify - and as AWBoater mentioned, the range to target would affect the parallax error, which would be especially difficult with smaller, faster, more erratic targets.

 

I've not used one myself - I've been shooting birds, wildlife, and birds in flight for many years and have just grown accustomed to panning and tracking through the viewfinder - I often acquire with two eyes - one on the target and one on the viewfinder, and once I find them in the finder, I've gotten fairly practiced at staying on them and panning with them. After a lot of years, it's gotten much easier, to where I shoot with both an optical-viewfinder camera and an electronic-viewfinder camera, and have no difficulty switching between them.

 

I could see if you need to shoot more distant targets, where this might help at least in the initial acquisition, if not the actual panning and tracking - so if the cost is reasonable, it might still be worth a try, especially if you've had any difficulties with this type of shooting in the past.

[Joshthedog]

My initial thought was parallax errors too but distance greatly effects parallax and if your shooting BIF (birds in flight) you will probably be far enough away from the subject where it won't make a whole lot of difference. Of course if you have a big tele on the camera that will change things a little, but it will still be pretty close. I think the bigger problem with this thing is keeping your AF point on the subject. I use the center point about 90% of the time, even though my 1D's have a bunch.

 

I shoot professional sports in Chicago and almost always have a 400/2.8 on the main camera. If you think bif and planes are hard to track, try following the action of a baseball or football game through the viewfinder, especially with the big lens and you being so close to the action. Like Zackiedawg, I always shoot with both eyes open to help follow the play, and that's helps a lot.

 

I've never seen one of these things in person but the price isn't too bad, so if you think it will help you go for it.