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Meade CaptureView 8x22 Digital Camera Binocular (Compact)

Meade CaptureView 8x22 Digital Camera Binocular (Compact)

List Price: $79.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Good Binoculars -- Bad Camera
Review: This camera has suitable optics when used as binoculars. Perhaps that's the only redeeming quality of this product.

The camera, controls, and software are horrendous. The camera in "high-resolution" mode is only 640x480 and produces extremely poor quality pictures. Since there are no settings or options for controlling picture quality, you get what the camera decides to give you.

The software was horrendous, too. It uses twain drivers for downloading pictures through USB even on Windows XP. There are no options for directly accessing or copying pictures from the camera. By the way, the driver shipped with this product for Windows XP doesn't work -- you must download the driver from the website in order to make it work half-way well under XP. The plug-n-play installation ran three times to install the driver correctly, which is ludicrous.

It's a neat idea, but save your money. This product is a loser and you will be terribly disappointed if you buy it. I can't even imagine why Meade would keep the product alive, except to drain the stock room.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A good camera
Review: This camera is excellent for birdwatching & catching those great shots. The perfect picture is about 16 feet from you- I have taken some prize winning photos with mine. It is fixed focus and takes some time to learn to perfect your technique- but by and all I am pleased with the price and the product. My boyfriend also bought one and we enjoy taking pictures together and comparing. A good product- a good price.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disappointed - disgusted
Review: This camera is excellent for birdwatching & catching those great shots. The perfect picture is about 16 feet from you- I have taken some prize winning photos with mine. It is fixed focus and takes some time to learn to perfect your technique- but by and all I am pleased with the price and the product. My boyfriend also bought one and we enjoy taking pictures together and comparing. A good product- a good price.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nice try but ...
Review: This is a really clever combination, and a really noble attempt at a product, but seriously, anyone who uses binoculars for more than a peep at some popstar's midrift is a person interested in seeing what they are looking at, and 640x480 resolution is, frankly, not enough resolution for anything more than webpage icons (don't forget that most photos end up being cropped). Having the name Meade attached is a draw, but I expect this is one more item in their new line of made-in-China products (the telescope is ok, but scrap the tripod!). Maybe ok for a toy for your 10-year-old, but if it costs more than [$$$], you're better off with a JamCam.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Meade Capture View Binoculars
Review: This is a very good pair of binoculars with a very lousy digital camera attached.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Piece of ...! Don't even think about gettin' it
Review: This is binocular melded with a very low end submegapixel digital camera.

I can't even rate the optical portion high, because it was very uncomfortable to use. The spacing and spacing adjustments between the barrels are awkward. My nose has to rest on the USB port entry to be able to see into the lenses.

The camera automatically shuts off in less than 60 seconds, sometimes not enough time to line up a shot. When the shutter engages, it beeps once, but it beeps twice more before shut off, forcing me to look at the camera to ensure I didn't hit the shutter again.

The worst part, is my 10X digital camera opticals gets a tighter closeup than the binocular.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not a quality product
Review: This is binocular melded with a very low end submegapixel digital camera.

I can't even rate the optical portion high, because it was very uncomfortable to use. The spacing and spacing adjustments between the barrels are awkward. My nose has to rest on the USB port entry to be able to see into the lenses.

The camera automatically shuts off in less than 60 seconds, sometimes not enough time to line up a shot. When the shutter engages, it beeps once, but it beeps twice more before shut off, forcing me to look at the camera to ensure I didn't hit the shutter again.

The worst part, is my 10X digital camera opticals gets a tighter closeup than the binocular.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: msc/std
Review: This product looks cheap, the material quality is not good. It was made in China, however, Meade did not control the production quality as expect. That's why the finished product is sub-quality, especially the battery compartment cover is difficult to open and can not close it perfectly. Although the price is attractive, but this binocular view is sub-standard and the picture quality from its digital camera function is unexpected.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Capture Views: Some good photos, most mediocre
Review: We bought the Meade Capture View today at Radio Shack for $119. We plan to return it. Out of a dozen test pictures, two were excellent, the rest mediocre. Pictures in bright sunlight and medium distance were better than the rest. The software and hookup to the computer worked well. We got some neat pictures of some wild turkeys passing through our yard.

The unsurmountable problem is in the design. You have to keep the two AAA batteries installed to take pictures and to preserve what's in the memory. But if you leave the batteries in, as warned in the instructions, the batteries will run down and you will lose the pictures! So between uses, aand after transfering the pictures to a computer, it's best to disable the batteries. We did it with a piece of tape on the plus terminal.

So, you can't take the dealy on a vacation, unless you have access to a computer to download the images, or you risk the photos disappearing as the battery runs down, or you run out of room in the small. volatile memory to store images. We think this is a serious restriction.

The optical quality of the binocular part was good considering the price. (The camera uses separate optics.)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: not sure
Review: wife bought be this camera. I haven't unsealed the package. What do you think


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