Sony’s imaging wing have been on a roll lately, with the intense NEX-7 and equally impressive Alpha A77 DSLR simply blowing us away with modern features and perfect image quality. But these $2,000 digital binoculars ? Yeah, we are not so sure. We went hands-on with a pre-production sample of the 3D binocs, which replace the conventional optical finders with a couple of high-res LCD EVFs. But if you think about that top-end binoculars are a joy to make use of as a result of their excellent optical viewfinders, swapping in an electronic version puts the DEV-3 ($1,400) and DEV-5 ($2,000) in a fully new category — if a superior (and standard) viewing experience is what you’re after, these “cost-competitive” optics really won’t hit the spot. Jump past the break for our impressions.
The one sample that Sony had handy certainly isn’t able to take home. They’re rather large, with a durable plastic construction, and are a piece too heavy to wear comfortably around your neck. Several other curiosities make it clear that these still have a ways to head before they hit the production line — the ability slider is reversed, as an example, so we wanted to flip it to off to power the binoculars on. We weren’t permitted to snap photos or video since image quality isn’t yet final, but both the DEV-3 and -5 are theoretically in a position to capturing 7.1 megapixel stills and 1080p 3D video. Since you will be peeping at your subject through a couple of EVFs, the binocs offer a distinct “glasses-free” approach to 3D viewing, since they deliver a unique image on to each eye — even slightly different than what the corporate offers with its 0 HMZ-T1 0 .
Searching through the DEV-5 more closely resembles the experience you will have looking your camera’s EVF than what you will see with a normal pair of binoculars. This digital version offers autofocus, and while sharp, subjects don’t appear nearly as crisp or realistic as they do with the optical equivalent. So are these digital binoculars an entire failure? No, we wouldn’t say that, but it’s without question that their target audience could be very small — negligible, even, in comparison to that of nearly some other Sony product.
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