Digital hunting scope

Sparks

Interesting. Guess it was only a matter of time before toys started showing up like this. Wonder just how useful they'll actually prove to be though?

Elcan Digital Hunter Scope — Technological Marvel



Elcan ushers in the age of digitally-enhanced scopes with its amazing Digital Hunter. It’s about time digital features were added to consumer rifle scopes. In many respects a $150.00 point and shoot camera is much more sophisticated than a $2600.00 Schmidt & Bender. Adding a digital image sensor and digital “crosshairs” to a telescopic lens system unlocks an amazing realm of possibilities. First, you can eliminate moving parts, including the reticle itself, avoiding the possibility of reticle movement that could alter your zero. With digital crosshairs “informed” by a ballistics calculator, the reticle’s aimpoint can automatically display the correct hold-over at any target distance. For low-light shooting, you can boost the brightness and contrast of the image. You can even hook up the scope to a remote monitor so an instructor or spotter can see exactly what the shooter is seeing. Last but not least, everything viewed through the scope can be digitally recorded for later playback and analysis. This way a hunter can record, for posterity, the moment he bagged a trophy buck. Or, a military sniper can record a complete target engagement, for later review by his commander and fellow marksmen.









The $1199.00 Elcan Digital Hunter offers a 2.5-16.5X digital zoom, four field-selectable reticles, and built-in video capture. Reticles can be changed ‘on the fly’ and you can output the video to an external monitor, or simply pop out the SD flash memory card to play back video files on your computer.



Electronic Zoom with No Moving Parts
There are no moving parts in the Digital Hunter except for the diopter adjustment. Magnification is accomplished electronically, and the aiming point does not change at all during magnification. The electronic magnification is parallax-free and the exit pupil remains constant, allowing easy target acquisition, even at high power. Elcan claims that resolution does not change significantly from wide field of view to narrow field of view.

Electronic Ballistic Compensation
One of the most useful features of the Digital Hunter is electronic ballistic compensation. Here’s how that works. The scope has a USB port to connect with a computer. Using Elcan-provided PC ballistics software, you input Bullet BC, Muzzle Velocity, and even wind speed and angle. The scope’s processor automatically calculates drift and drop for various distances and then positions the digital aim point for the correct holdover, based on the target distance you select. All the critical calculations are handled automatically. Watch the video below to see how this all works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfRWsd2czdU

Day-Night Digital Hunter


In addition to the standard Elcan Digital Hunter, Elcan offers a version for low-light shooting. The Day/Night Digital Hunter, priced at $1399.00, can be combined with IR (infrared) “flash-lights” to provide full night-hunting capability. Low Light mode displays all the available visible light and the near infrared light (that can be “seen” by the scope’s image sensor, but not by the human eye). Utilizing the near infrared means more light energy is available to the scope for better, brighter imaging. After dark, active night vision enables covert surveillance and varmint hunting (where legal). The effective range of the active night vision depends on the power of the IR Flashlight(s).

Remote Viewing Capability Helps Disabled Shooters
When the Elcan Digital Hunter was first introduced a couple years ago, Outdoors writer Ray Sasser of the Dallas Morning News field-tested it with Ray Mauldin, Elcan Products Manager. Sasser wrote: “There’s a new rifle scope technology on the horizon, a spin-off from military developments made by the Raytheon Company [parent company of Elcan]. The software calculated bullet drop… and the information was stored in a computer chip inside the scope. The only two drawbacks I could find were price and weight. The digital scope weighs 26 ounces, nearly seven ounces heavier than Leupold’s LPS 3.5-14×50mm, my personal favorite traditional scope. Mauldin said physically challenged hunters are particularly excited about the Digital Hunter. It can be used with a video monitoring screen so the rifle can be sighted without your eye to the scope. That’s a huge advantage for a quadriplegic, one-armed or no-armed shooter.”

Digital Enhancements for Target Scopes?
Traditionalists may scoff at digital scope technology, thinking that something like the digital Elcan could never be used in a match because it is too big and heavy. But consider this — all you really need on top of the rifle is the lens system with light sensor. All the other controls and the display could be moved off the rifle and built into a benchtop display/control/processing unit (which could be wireless). In fact, the control functions and display could even performed by an iPod or smartphone. With the iPod you could select the reticle, input ballistics data (Velocity, Bullet BC, Wind direction), and select the magnification level. (Fitting longer focal-length lenses would allow higher magnification than the Digital Hunters’ 2.5-16.5X.) And with a finger-tap on the screen you can record the entire match you are shooting. When mass-produced, such a unit could be sold for considerably less than the $1199.00 price of the Elcan Digital Hunter, as the iPod does the processing and replaces most of the hardware.

pedroeibar1

Interesting. No mention of battery life; with flat batteries it is dead weight.
It will cause a row or two in competition shooting I'd guess, like the toys in the golf sector.
Rs
P.

CJhaughey

Interesting.
Raytheon make it so it is likely a spinoff from their weapons aiming software.
They have a plant in Derry it might be partly Irish made!

Grizzly 45

Was bound to happen all right.That a computor gets stuck on a scope!!
Definate use in LE/ military situations.BUT kind of takes the fun out of shooting?It doesnt look very robust either.Price isnt bad for what it is.Wait until the Chinese get hold of it,and it will be about $450 ! Certainly does away with as lot of guesswork and faffing around wiith ballistic tables etc.
Sods law the batteries will die just as you are lineing up for that shot of a lifetime as well.Great in one way,bad in another,more chips to go wrong when you need them to be right!

johngalway

I wonder will that fall under the night vision definition here? Looks interesting.

mrbrianj

Similar to cameras, I alway prefered an slr to a digital camera. Much faster to use, faster to focus yourself than getting the Dcamera to do it for you. It alway felt like you had to spend so much time programming a digtal camera for any effects other than just pointing and shooting. But the digital cameras also had their advantages, photo storage and review - and size. Now I use a Digital SLR, gives everything a traditional camera did plus all the advantages of a processor helping out, Some of this would be a great help for hunting, like for shake adjustment and recording your shots.

I'd say that all your high end scopes will come with some digital functions soon enough, but that one is ugly as hell

"Single Lens reflex" for any smart arses

Cass

Its basically the next evolution of the Burris Laserscope. I can see it having success in the hunting world for long shots, etc, but no help in the Taregt shooting world.

Most target shooters will know their minutes for the given distances, and as these distances do not change these settings are almost all the time a constant. In relation to wind while a scope that helps get you on paper would be great the wind never stays constant so you would be adjusting the crosshairs/POA as much with this scope as a normal scope. Lastly the weight. I as well as every other target shooter tries to get the best gear while remainging under wight. It looks big, bulky and definitely going to push those close to their weight limit over it.

For hunting it could be far more useful. Providing those with little experience in MOA to take shots they normally could not. The inbuilt camera function, etc would be good for a training gimmick, or recording "that" special shot. Other than that i cannot see it being of use. Then there is the issue of BC and muzzle velocity. While most of us here have either a good, average, basic understanding of BC and other external Balistics info how many out there would not, and shoot the old fashioned way of zeroed for 1 inch high at 100 and hold over.

I'm trying not to knock the scope as it looks quite fun and useful to some extent, however i can see it having a limited customer base and even those that do buy it may only use some of the functions some of the time. From a target point of view it is more of a hassle than a help.

I await the rebutal.

declan1980

i don't think i'd go for it myself, something like that would take some of the skill, and a lot of the fun out of shooting

CJhaughey

I am not sure how different it is to using a Ballistic program linked to a scope.
All it means is that instead of you using an external program like Exbal it is built in to the scope itself.
Ok there are some bells and whistles but it is largely the bullet drop that most will be interested in.

lordarpad

OK, give me 3 accelerometers so measure the inclination of the rifle in all three axis (exists as smartphone tech) a laser rangefinder and higher resolution. And maybe a mixture of optical and electronic zoom.

Tackleberrywho

The resolution is poor, and that was an advert!!
The Technology is interesting, it would depend on the processor and the batteries really, I have a digital bridge camera and the batteries only last
~1hour continous use

The better the resolution the faster the processor, the faster the processor the hotter it gets and it would need a cooling fan.
Either that or a very expensive processor

I'd love to field test one

Sparks

lordarpad wrote: »

OK, give me 3 accelerometers so measure the inclination of the rifle in all three axis (exists as smartphone tech) a laser rangefinder and higher resolution. And maybe a mixture of optical and electronic zoom.

And then have it automatically upload photos to facebook and twitter
Wave of the future

lordarpad

I like it as a harbinger of the shape of things to come, but don't think that it is good enough yet looking at the tests and he foggy images the field testers got - naah

Tackleberrywho

lordarpad wrote: »

I like it as a harbinger of the shape of things to come, but don't think that it is good enough yet looking at the tests and he foggy images the field testers got - naah

me either,
It looks bulky and heavy.
And if it is not heavy then it more than likely could be flimsey