Gathering Intelligence with Inexpensive Optics
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- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
- In all of our past conversations about drones and radios, we've been circling the topic of gathering and communicating information. There are a lot of was to do observation with different optical devices, and here are a few real world tests of lenses and scopes for collecting data.
Let us know in the comments what kinds of tests you want us to do at T.Rex Labs, and what other observational devices we should discuss.
DO NOT tell us in the comments how you use observational devices. Google doesn't like that. 
Наука
Whoever’s doing the Animal Planet voice needs a raise
AI
I found the MH-47 Night Stalkers clip with the voice hilarious.
might be the david attenborough AI
You want to pay the AI?
Im fine with a David ai voice @@James13234
Isaac - really enjoy the wide array of content beyond firearms, much appreciated
Yes! Agreed. Also probably a good content decision with RUclips's terms/policies surrounding certain topics (ehem fire arms).
Would love to hear more subject matter on devices pertaining to long distance audio acquisition plus direction finding equipment ...signal direction finding, sound direction finding, radio direction finding, TDOA, Dopplar, utilizing SDRs for direction finding/ drone detection/ drone deterrence/ drone deactivation...
You know...cool subjects like that outside of the "pew pew" ones.....
stalker content is the best content
Lucas may be good at tactics and firearms, but Isaac... dude's just geeking at everything else, love your content
I still have to watch the video, but i just wanted to express how happy I am to see a new Trex Labs video, I love what you and the team do, Isaac!
This guy is way better than the super skinny do
Nikon P1000 - 4K video and 125x / 3000 mm optical zoom. Nikon P950 4k video and 83x / 2000 mm optical zoom. The ability to record what you see is a significant intel advantage.
Yeah this video honestly comes across as haphazardly thrown together with no mention of the P1000. Was pretty disappointed to not even see it mentioned. I mean it even has a view finder FFS!
Omg i died laughing at the Pelican...Great job as always 😂
When you get to the clip from the Chinook documentary you will cry.
That was funny af 😂😂@@T.REXLabs
@@T.REXLabsgiven I was Army Aviation for over 20 years.....I did cry😢. Bravo
I love how factually, substantively and clearly you talk and explain various technical issues.
Only Isaac can make a 30 minute about reading a sheet of paper interesting
Loved this video. I feel like I’m “touching grass” vicariously through you while I’m at my office job
Always fun to get into the 90% humidity and 90 degree heat for some field tests!
Back in the 80's the Russkies in West Germany sent out 2 man teams: they were SMLM or soviet Military Liaison Mission chaps, basically a KGB major w/ captain as driver or colonel w/ major as driver cruising around the country in a big Mercedes collecting data. Reportedly among their gear for a quick shoot and scoot was the Photosniper, a Xenit slr with a fairly big telephoto lens mounted to a purpose made rifle stock, which would help solve some hand held stability problems you had.
Saw me a SMLM in '86 as they spent an inordinate amount of time hanging off our bumpers of our deuce and a halfs out on the Bahn near Czechoslovakia. To them we were considered worth noting when they saw the parachutes on our bumper markers.
As someone who owns a cheapo spotting scope, s22 ultra, and a sony a73 (with kit lens dont sue me) this was insanely informative and useful info finding out I had some utility that i didn't even realize. Thank you for the amazing content and please don't stop! Proud to be a fellow Tennessean.
19:31 Another cool thing about license plates is they're retro reflective. So if you hit them with just a little bit of IR, you can read them pretty well with NV. They should also be very good targets for laser range finding.
I'm about 5 minutes in, but as a resident of the greater Los Angeles County, i actually do this from my garage if I see police or news helicopters over an area in the distance. I'll set up on a tripod with my vortex razor hd 20-60x85 and then hit 10x on the same s23 ultra camera-phone to read a 600x zoom of the helicopter to see which news agency and general azimuth they're pointing their cameras. Then I can look up the inevitable live feed of what's happening a few miles from my house.
This channel is the absolute best.
Vortex (and others I'm sure) makes a nice little 10x handheld monocular. It's got good glass and is heavier than a cheap lens, but because it's so small, it's light compared to binoculars, or full size spotting scopes.
That's a fantastic monocular. Everyone should probably have one unless they are getting something with the built-in rangefinder.
@@T.REXLabsthe vortex solo R/T line have mil reticle and silhouettes for ranging as well
When I was younger, I had a cheapo astronomical telescope. I took it up near the top of Mt. Cheaha, Alabama just to see how far I could see things. Of course everything was upside down, but I could pick out men from women at 14 miles away in Oxford, AL. The humidity in the air was my limiting factor.
More recently I took my family to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. From the 9,700(?) foot elevation of the Grand Point Overlook, my Pixel 7 took some nice handheld 30x zoom photos of Mt. Pine, just north of Phoenix, Arizona - about 300 miles away.... I had to double and triple check myself, but I have the photos.
Phones on the back of spotting scopes are great for observation. Most phone cameras can be triggered remotely with wired or wireless headphones too. Turned my biologist relatives onto pretty much the same scope and phone setup in the video ~10 years ago. They've gotten tons of observational use in the field. They've also been running cameras going back to the days of film and still run the phone spotting scope setups for the ease of use and portability. Also missed in the video is how phones are much more than the camera. Post processing software is full featured on phones and has been for a while. Effects aside that may enhance results, being able to share in real time is something that only the newest mirrorless cameras have achieved without being wonky. Those biologist relatives for example have done some cool things once I showed them the right combination of apps. My favorite is a couple biologists on site but apart by ~1/2 mile sharing photos and map images(locations of both as well as heading shared as screenshots through text) where they were coordinating surveys pretty intuitively.
Oh man, I always enjoy a Lucas video or any T-Rex video for that matter. But Issac and T-Rex labs is on another level of their own. Such great content and informative videos, feels like a great pbs show, he deserves a show!
Love the Trex Labs videos, keep them coming Isaac!
Wasn’t ever expecting to see a trex/ smarter everyday crossover lol
amazing how many people dont seem to know David Attenborough's voice
Don't forget about light reflecting off those large glass surfaces alerting the target of surveillance. There are special grids you can place over the optic to reduce the flagging potential.
Or you use Nikon COOLPIX P1000 with its 125x optical zoom. No faffing with adapters, reasonable compact and in the price range of your phone.
That is a fascinating camera. It's five years old, but I really should test one.
Those cameras do have great zoom capabilities; however, once it starts getting dark, they lose their usefulness. I’m a PI, and we use Panasonic and Sony camcorders more often than not when it comes to surveillance operations. They have great image stabilization and IR night shot modes that you can enhance with a separate IR flashlight. Another thing to take into account with any camera used for surveillance is how fast you can get the camera into action. You often get only one opportunity to get the shot, and you don’t want a camera that takes any time to start up, focus, and zoom.
I came here looking for this. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have.
Right!
@@sonicredcrinteresting!
Smarter every day T. rex arms is not the cross over I expected
You can get a 150mm (6" aperture) 1500mm FL (f10) Celestron C6-A Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope OTA (0.77 arc seconds resolution) for $600, f6.3 reducer 945mm FL $190 (shouldn't be needed for daylight), and appropriate adaptor's for your camera or a more sensitive astronomy camera in various sensor sizes that will also do video (highpointscientific lowest OTA price, w/good tech help)... If you want to crank it up a notch.
Mirage or atmospheric turbulence will still limit your resolution of course.
Thanks for the video! -mike
quickly becoming one of my favorite channels, I regret sleeping on this until now
Great vid, an the fact that you actually fought off that smile when thinking about buying that 12k camera deserves a 12k camera.
The Chinook narration killed me 😂
HOW, HOW does this keep getting better!?!? My goodness i feel like a criminal watching this quality of video for free! But thankful because aside from buying a holster or two i cannot afford to support yall lol!
Great video! I love it when Issac says the clear answer is, "it depends"... Haha ! But seriously, this is super helpful and informative. Thank you.
Besides my daily channels I watch. I love the entertainment and quality level. This is my favorite channel for showing how we can use this educational information to expand your natural senses of being more aware. How to leverage commercial equipment to increase your knowledge and capabilities if you may need to gain an edge in overall situation awareness over the average person .
Another great video. Using Jeremy's favorite tool on any camera is not something I would ever want to do, so thanks for the FYI
When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you are Jeremy Clarkson, every tool is a hammer.
When we go to Yellowstone, we always rent a top-tier Swarovski spotting scope to watch the animals. I think the zoom is 60x or more and the objective is either 95mm or 115mm. It’s huge.
We get great pics with our cellphones.
The wolf watching nut that we rent from has super high quality pics that he gets through the scope with a good little macro lens camera.
That hilarious, ive had that spotting scope for years now. Ive been very happy with it
The green glow behind the video window.. nice touch!
Great video, I had been looking at picking up a cheap spotting scope recently to practice observation post fundamentals.
A couple things, and I know, the video was about intelligence gathering. First, to be able to see anything you need batteries for the camera. While recording with the spotting scope is very clunky it allows you to passively keep eyes on the objective until you need to record something. The second thing would be protecting the camera from the elements, an important consideration in my opinion. There are always pros and cons for everything, and the camera does seem to be the better all in one package.
Top quality channel. Earned my sub .
to be fair the start was quite good, even when the topic isn't something i'd be interested in.
The better way to do this is to consider your optical system as a whole.
Astrophotographers are pretty good about doing this. Telescopes have specs for the diffraction limit of their optics and if you match that to the pixel size on your camera body, you are going to get the maximum resolution and the best light sensitivity.
Your 2x doubler does increase the focal length by 2x but it also increases the f-stop by a bit more than 2x (because light transmission isn't 100%).
Digital zooms don't have the same effect, they just crop an image and blow it up.
An optical zoom in a phone is a very compromised piece of optics. The lenses are small, the sensor is small and chances are that your lens is going to get dirty while you carry it in your pocket.
My solution is a bit more astronomy equipment. I have a couple 90mm Orion Maksutov Cassegrain (reflex lens) telescopes (a spare lets me not worry so much about breaking one). They are 500mm f6.3 like yours but a bit bigger. For optical viewing I have a 45° erecting prism and a bino-viewer which splits the image to binocular eyepieces so I can view with less eye strain and it lets the brain do more to improve the image in your mind. For camera use I have a T-mount to sony E- mount adapter.
The tripod is a big part of getting good images. I have a few combos that use an Orion slow motion adapter. This allows you to aim the scope by twisting a couple knobs. This is better than typical photographic tripod heads but touching it still creates vibration issues. My best is a cheapo carbon fiber tripod with a Kenko gimbal style alt/azimuth mount which is a bunch more stable and it also has cable driven adjustments so aiming doesn't cause as much vibration.
My last trick is that I occasionally drive a duck bill style ground anchor in to the ground where I want my tripod and I'll tension my tripod to the ground to make it even more stable.
I do this when I'm shooting 1,000 yards and at around 40x magnification I can see bullet holes. It's useful which is hard to get at 1,000 yards unless you use target cameras downrange.
The image stacking software mentioned works. I want to incorporate that in to my flow, maybe using a Raspberry-Pi or other compact computer. If I can get a high resolution group photo at 1,000 yards+ and it takes less than maybe 20 seconds, that will be useful for range sessions and competition.
The idea of just stacking a lot of stuff together only works if you land on a good combo by accident. With intent and a bit of work looking for the right combo it doesn't have to be an accident.
Love the ai nature documentary narrator
I like your raw approach to testing. (So tired of "experts. ")
In Astrophotography we use a process called Stacking which simulates a long exposure yet using a bunch of short exposure images. This has a benefit of reducing atmospheric distortion as it averages the pixel over many images so distortion is eliminated. There are many convolutions other than simple averages which I feel could greatly help here.
The doughnut is the best red Dot.
I just think it's cool that you know about Destin at Smarter Every Day. He's really cool, and very knowledgeable about a lot of different topics.
Isaac from T Rex Labs is just a more based Destin from Smarter Every Day.
You can't get more based than my boy Destin! 🤓 I have zero doubt that the four of us would get along great together.
You can use a rest bag to stabalize a spotting scope on the fly. Cheaper and smaller than a tripod, but less versatile in some ways
I'm disappointed that you didn't use the Nikon P1000 which has a 125x optical zoom. It's only $1100 and a much better option than any of the methods mentioned in this video.
My thoughts exactly. Love mine.
P900s are under $500 used
That camera isn’t modular, and a dslr gives you way more options
@@jennamiller3114 what are you defining as ‘modular’?
@@jennamiller3114 This video is about long range intelligence gathering. So what if you can't swap the lens out. 125x zoom is already the best you can get without spending $10,000+.
Thank you Isaac
Edit: smarter every day is the goat
Absolutely.
TTArtisan makes some great lenses for Sony cameras particularly the older APS-C sensor cameras which can be had used for very reasonable prices. The smaller sensor also means cheaper and lighter glass. I am currently trying out an old NEX-6 and seeing how well that works for my use case.
hey Isaac hope you see this even though its been a few days since the video was posted. I picked up a pair of the sig image stabilizing binos this year (16x) and was completely blown away with their capabilities. I ended up buying the 10x version of them for hunting and use the 16x for mostly identifying boats out on the lake but you should really check them out as well! bigger than just your cell phone and slightly bigger than the camera but much smaller than a spotting scope and you can freehand them like the camera very well.
9:05 Kai jumpscare lol BOKEH!!
Bokeh!
Sometimes we don’t listen when God speaks but sometimes he makes it easy when y’all do it. Thank you for the useful and interesting content and information.
Great video and discussion. I think more prepared citizens should invest in long range observation devices BEFORE their gucci SPR build or “sNIPer riFlE”. Unless we’re just going to drop any human silhouette approaching your place
Give local kids candy for intel around town
Thank you.
Kind a left out the terrestrial telescopes... Glass lenses, great tri-pod, camera adaptable. Perhaps finding a covert way of getting your camera closer is the best idea.
Good way to create a cliffhanger for the next video
The peeping toms of our nation will salute you
Doesn't the Gosky's zoom go all the way to 60x? I've used it to get some extremely pretty photos of the moon and Jupiter. I'd say it punches pretty well considering the price, and that little clamp on tool is surprisingly useful. Now, getting a good tripod figured out- that's a whole 'nuther biscuit...
Yes 🙌
Sony RX100 MkVII… incredible range AND an incredible digital zoom on top of that.
Do you suggest the angled eyepiece on the spotting scopes, or the straight eyepiece, like what’s on the Leupold?
Tamron adaptall2 lenses are inexpensive and they have some pretty good high focal length lenses that are compact and can be adapted to basically any camera. The only issue is they don't support autofocus. The SP 55BB is pretty good. It's f8 though. You can slap that on a Nikon D70, or a D3300 and have a pretty good time with it. It won't be as good in terms of noise or low light levels than the setup in the video but it'll get you reasonably close, and it'll cost you 200 - 500 bucks
Found it funny, that an US Channel uses meters for distance. Still great job, very details beyond firearms. Perfaictly nailed it on drones (I am fov pilot).
I actually like the bokah and the image quality of the reflex lens - its different.
With the camera you can also adjust more parameters like iso etc.
It definitely feels very tangibly analog. Hipster photographers and lomography aficionados should mess with them because they are cheap, fun, and flare nicely.
While a full frame sensor on a DSLR/Mirrorless is great for high quality, you'll get more "zoom" and still more than enough resolution with a smaller "crop factor" sensor. For example, the 1.5x crop factor of a Nikon DX DSLR would make your lens and extension tube the equivalent zoom of a 1500mm lens.
You can also get viewfinder adapters for cheap reflex telescopes, which aren't great for normal photography, but would give you even more range.
A used Nikon 5200 and a a cheap telescope would easily be under $1,000 and give plenty of resolving power.
Great dating advice
As a note for future test, a smaller sensor platform decreases the apparent FOV. You'll hear in the camera world those smaller or larger sensors as Full-Frame equivalent focal length.
That said, for intel gathering you can get a cheap used m4/3rds camera from either Panasonic or OM System (formally Olympus, lawsuit weirdness). Ideally an om system camera as they're IP rated instead of 'trust me bro'. I suggest the 4/3rd platform for the reach you gain for the size of the glass/body. On additional way to get additional reach is to enable the aps-c mode for your full-frame camera
A Bean bag for support makes a world a difference. For both usability and vibe obsorbtion
One thing I found useful with the S22 ultra is the 100x digital with the AI assist in photo mode. I've gotten mountain top shots of buildings with surprising resolution and other shots in cities with some pretty astounding results.
Fantastic video. Youre using the S22? The S24 ultra's zoom would have shown every line on that paper. The zoom functionality is insane. And whether you recorded a 4k video or you took a low light pic, the ai helps tidy up the image on the phone. Its next level. But I definitely love the scope you used! Seems very affordable and useful
When using cell phone you can use the zoom on your phone to even push t further. If you have the pixel phone it has software for low light visibility which works amazingly well with a monocular setup.
With the s24 ultra, there is the camera mode, slr, pro, and a new expert mode. If you turn the iso down and turn the exposure time up, you'll be looking through the screen and not see much of anything, but you can take a picture that will be pretty crisp. The night vision is ridiculous on it. The dollar store (i know, a $1 accessory on a $1200 phone) has a clip on lens that does at least a dollar's worth of work.
I put mine on a wooden adapter with foamrubber shocks i made for a scope on a marlin 22 that i can cast the video onto a 70 inch television for excellent fun when ... when you need it in a situation like that
Those phone eye adapters work great for a pvs14 too
pretty sure that spotting scope is more that 20x. my guess is that its 80x i think the 20 is the lens size you look through, the 60 is the lens you look out of, and the x80 is the magnification power. there is a huge and awesome difference between 20 and 80. sweet video none the less.
Great video. 👍. I’ve used my Nikon D7100 camera with a 400-600mm lens on a tripod; with the camera tethered to a laptop with a cable long enough to keep me out of sight. I can camouflage the rig and look through the camera without standing behind it. Just another nature photographer. 😉
4:26 that's not even chromatic abbreviation, that is straight up halo.
If you need to get a really sharp photo through heat haze, record a 15 to 30 second raw (uncompressed) video at max resolution. Then run that into a "stacker" program, say Autostakkert. This will produce a very high resolution photo. I have used this to get extremely detailed photos of the planets that appear fuzzy when setting up, but after stacking, they are amazing. I tried it with a 80mm reflector and was able to recover a license plate at 600 yards in very heavy heat mirage. It's not real time, but it works.
spoiler alert: this is a future video. Fantastic suggestion, sir.
4:45 is what I have used on the range last 2 years. It also saves my eyes and records all shots.
If you actually capture a photo with the correct settings using the phone camera, and not use the screen as a viewfinder, the sensor will pick up more detailed information than what is displayed real time on this screen. You can then edit this image to bring out even more detail and zoom in on the picture if you also desire.
The phone's price shouldn't matter unless you'd buy a phone just to use it as an observation devise.
Also: The phone is an low profile camera in its own.
And you can share your photos with your team/toc.
The DSLR is better for night photography.
My advice, buy both setups.
I have the Bausch & Lomb Discoverer 15-60x spotting scope ($40 at goodwill) with a t-mount adapter for my Sony cameras.
Cadex SURVEILLANCE KIT 2700. Belive that puts a regular camera behind a straight spotting scope. And can also put thermal or nvg infront of the spotter
Oh, its the DGI man.
Isaac, can you provide a link to the mirror lens?
Need more Trex nature documentary content
Really enjoy your video's.. Thanks for all the hard work.. Just on this video subject. Have you tried the Nikon P-1000? I like it a lot for what you are talking about and it is very stable. Thanks again,
On web cams and digital cameras, carefully, and some brands/ models better than others...one can take the lens off of the sensor module - where, once separate, a UV/ IR filter can be located. Again, with care, this filter can be delicately removed(it's a pinky looking thin clear material...very delicate...also wise to save for future applications for filtering UV/ IR). Once removed these once obsolete budget webcams can now be utilized for amazing imagery and best part night vision(not thermal obviously) - since now we aren't restricting UV/ IR... 'leafy' materials are now a brighter glow, even some times a yellowish/ orange tint since they reflect that spectrum of light waveform.... On the subject of license plates... This modification would do wonders to make the plate really pop..glow. If wanting the full meal deal setup 1 could incorporate a IR illuminator .
So, my question now is... Do these lenses have similar filters within them? Can they be removed to achieve these effects - ? Would be something interesting to investigate.
Did you consider stacking the thousands of individual frames in your video images to increase resolution?
Can you magnify a thermal scope? Digital zoom is not ideal. Is there any way to gain zoom otherwise?
I’m experimenting with a TT525 scope with a trigger cam 2.1. The setup is working well, but is anything but affordable. I think I’ll try recording documents at distance and see if it’s legible.
The ability with the phone recorded option is to share your recon with the boys through ATAK
The camera does a pretty good job of USB or Wi-Fi tethering straight to the phone, but the phone is certainly one step closer to ATAK.
Kowa makes adapters to connect full frame cameras to a spotting scope
I want to throw this out there. You can buy an old Micro Four Thirds camera or cinema camera like Blackmagics's pocket 4k. You can put a B4 lens (Broadcast lens) on it for cheap. I know because this is what I use for freelance news shooting. It is not hard to get really usable footage out of a very long lens with the correct mounting and still be low vis.
Some important features of reflex optics weren't mentioned (as far as I noticed). Reflex lenses are way more infrared-compatible. Meaning, that you can try hooking it up to a CCTV camera or an NVD and get way more infrared light in comparison to the refractive "glass" lens. There are very compact reflex lenses made specifically for micro 4/3 camera system. Tokina 300mm is a great example. However, they have a major disadvantage as well - the amount of light they can capture is typically low, so the picture gets noisy because of that.
This is a fantastic advantage of a bunch of cheap or vintage lensesnas well. They have all the downsides of glass, but they skimp on the fancy coatings, and as a result you can generally get more infrared and UV light onto the sensor.
@@isaacbotkintrex I've seen some people posting on the Cloudy Nights forum about modifying Sionyx Aurora to expose the actual lens mount and using it for low-light experiments of different sorts. It requires a "little bit" more advanced tinkering, but there are some very interesting pairings and results.
Sony Clear Image zoom will get you another 1.5x zoom for free on almost any Sony body
It is extremely good. However, it's even a little bit better on the ZVE1; you can push to 3x digital zoom, and while it does start to get kind of soft, it gets resized before the image is compressed, so it's still worth doing if you know that you will punch in later.
21:50 hand hold and stabilise king of the kill is the 100-400 panasonic leica micro four third lens with its own stabilisation paird with a newer panasonic mft body for additional stabilisation combined. The lens is over a thousand i think. Relatively cheap. Not as cheap as the mirror. But its just as compact and unobtrusive.
I was packing for a cabin trip and found a 12×60×60 i honestly dont even remember buying. For an old job. Better than finding a $20 bill in your pocket
No. You gather *information* . Intelligence is a product of analysis.
Well there is being discreet and with the spotting scope you can do bird watching ..
The astro community uses stacking software to compensate for atmospheric interference. I wonder how well it would work for terrestrial intel gathering. Obvious downsides would be the need for processing back at the labs, and not good for a mobile target.