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.....
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!
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.
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.
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 retroreflective. 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.
The topics covered in your media are exactly the topics needed for the serious citizen. With some others like Garand Thumb etc and practice you are creating the community we were intended to be.
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.
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'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.
@@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+.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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 .
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.
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.
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.
Very interesting! but with atmospheric distortion you are limited in any case, which is why they build large telescopes on top of mountains. Another thing to remember, I think it is considered that the greatest useful magnification you can get from any lens is 50X per inch of lens diameter. So simply put, the greater diameter of the lens the greater useful magnification. Questar used to make a very good reflecting telescope at around 3-4 inches diameter. Meade made a similar scope, plus also a simple mirror lens of 4" diameter that you could easily attach a camera to. I have, many times. But the mirror in the front that sends the image back to the camera greatly impacts the sharpness of the lens. So the best lens is a good ED Refractor lens. Orion telescopes made an 80mm ED telescope, as I am sure others do too. But then, the larger, better, lenses are, well, larger, heavier, more expensive, and harder to hide...... Everything is a compromise! in general, a good glass lens, inch for inch, will always out perform any mirror lens. I enjoyed your video, and your experiments!
It definitely feels very tangibly analog. Hipster photographers and lomography aficionados should mess with them because they are cheap, fun, and flare nicely.
I’ve seen videos where people have put go-pro on top of their telescopic sight at a shooting range. It works well at distance. The two things that affect the acuity downrange are the quality of the glass and the humidity. I use NightForce scopes, and in Southern Nevada, when the humidity is one percent, you can read the text on a 100-yard target. In Crosbyton, Texas, and at twenty-two power (using the internal range finder reticle), when the humidity must be 100%, you can’t see anything. On the bright side of using a telescopic sight, if you don't like what you see, you can always pull the trigger.
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.
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).
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
Very interesting! You've started me wondering: 4 digits cost is doable by some, out of reach for others. I'm wondering what could be done with cheaper phones or webcams coupled with reflex optics. Also, have you looked into any cheap or open source solutions for optical motion detection, say we're watching for deer in the distant flower garden, but can't be waiting around, watching for the little darlings to drop by but want to be notified in real time? Keep at, good stuff!
Olympus OM-D and PEN bodies have built-in stabilisation and can be picked up pretty cheaply secondhand. The stabilisation even works with any old manual lens (you need to set focal length in a camera menu).
Nixon P1000 camera 24-3000 mm F2.8-8 Zoom. This thing is absolutely incredible. I purchased it for travel in the Antarctuc to photograph wildlife. Highly recommended.
Excellent commentary on direct optical surveillance. In order to maintain your security a trick is to use a pair of neutral or nude nylons or pantyhose and put that over the last lens element essentially at the end of the optical train. This prevents a flash or glare from the last optical element and maintains your site security so you are not sending a flashing message to who or what you are observing. This is a common special forces technique used on rifle scopes binoculars and spotting Scopes or telescopes. I would certainly recommend including that recommendation because otherwise you might as well have a strobe light on your hat. Thank you enjoyed your presentation please be safe. Doc
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
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
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,
For mirage distorted static objects you might want to look into a trick amateur planetary astronomers use(d). In theory different parts of the image are in focus at different times. If you take a fairly high frame rate video of the shimmering object, software can look at each frame and identify which small parts are in focus and save those parts to one output image. Over time as different areas are caught in focus and added to the output image, the output image will become a sort of collage of in-focus parts that can be read. I am oversimplifying a little but that's the general idea. I don't know if that technique is still used or what it might be called but maybe you know someone who knows and can point you to some off the shelf and hopefully free software that will do it. Otherwise it might have to write your own code, maybe using OpenCV which probably has some useful functions for doing it.
Given the discussion on camera quality, what's causing your hands to look like they have faint blue stains on them from 17:22 onwards? Is that just because the Sony camera can't cope with the high contrast or is something else causing that effect? I'm assuming the contrast is too high for the camera because at 17:28 your fingers look overexposed.
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.
Obviously not exactly the same, but I've had crazy good results with the Nikon Coolpix line (I specifically use a P530), a lot of different models very cheap on ebay and the zoom is almost magical.
For those of us in the lower income brackets, a 10 year old bridge camera with a 40 - 50x lense is an option, most have digital zoom and video, too. There are compromises involved, of course. I picked up a Fuji 9150 for less than $75.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
May be better to use the smaller, cheaper APSC (cropped sensor) camera like the ZV-E10 for this type of use because the cropped apsc sensor is natively more zoomed in by about 1.5x and can retain the full resolution of the sensor. EDIT: saw he was trying to use apsc mode on the E1 but I think that sacrifices some of the detail than just using the native sensor.
Good point. I have this 12mp vlogger camera because it is so good at RUclips video production and shooting in low light, but I should have done more testing with that A7R3 because it has such a massive pixel advantage.
@@isaacbotkintrex video first it's hard to beat full frame sensors. 4k video is still 4k video. There's crazy Lenes like the tokina 900mm that on apsc is something like 1350mm native. Total package is right at 1000 bucks camera+lens.
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
I too have been looking at those 10k+ Cannon lenses. I want one so bad, but they are so bloody expensive. If I never ate again, I could probably afford it in a few decades.
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
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!
Price
@@tanjimhossain1617 1k USD new, but its 10 years old, check used market
@@tanjimhossain1617about 1.1kusd. Surprisingly cheap for what ur getting
Nikon equipment in that caliber can cost as much as a new car.
Lucas may be good at tactics and firearms, but Isaac... dude's just geeking at everything else, love your content
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
I love how factually, substantively and clearly you talk and explain various technical issues.
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.
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.
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.
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
19:31 Another cool thing about license plates is they're retroreflective. 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.
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!
@@T.REXLabs yeesh!
Only Isaac can make a 30 minute about reading a sheet of paper interesting
The topics covered in your media are exactly the topics needed for the serious citizen. With some others like Garand Thumb etc and practice you are creating the community we were intended to be.
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.
Yes. He should try out the Dwarf 2.
amazing how many people dont seem to know David Attenborough's voice
Smarter every day T. rex arms is not the cross over I expected
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!
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+.
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.
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
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 Trex Labs videos, keep them coming Isaac!
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.
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.
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...
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
quickly becoming one of my favorite channels, I regret sleeping on this until now
I like your raw approach to testing. (So tired of "experts. ")
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.
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!
Great vid, an the fact that you actually fought off that smile when thinking about buying that 12k camera deserves a 12k camera.
Wasn’t ever expecting to see a trex/ smarter everyday crossover lol
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.
This channel is the absolute best.
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.
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.
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!
The way you said "sneeewty photographers" at 8:59 tickles my brain.
Can you magnify a thermal scope? Digital zoom is not ideal. Is there any way to gain zoom otherwise?
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
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
to be fair the start was quite good, even when the topic isn't something i'd be interested in.
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.
Have you considered pairing TriggerCam 2.1 with a spotter scope?
Very interesting! but with atmospheric distortion you are limited in any case, which is why they build large telescopes on top of mountains.
Another thing to remember, I think it is considered that the greatest useful magnification you can get from any lens is 50X per inch of lens diameter. So simply put, the greater diameter of the lens the greater useful magnification. Questar used to make a very good reflecting telescope at around 3-4 inches diameter. Meade made a similar scope, plus also a simple mirror lens of 4" diameter that you could easily attach a camera to. I have, many times. But the mirror in the front that sends the image back to the camera greatly impacts the sharpness of the lens.
So the best lens is a good ED Refractor lens. Orion telescopes made an 80mm ED telescope, as I am sure others do too. But then, the larger, better, lenses are, well, larger, heavier, more expensive, and harder to hide...... Everything is a compromise! in general, a good glass lens, inch for inch, will always out perform any mirror lens.
I enjoyed your video, and your experiments!
would be interesting to see what you could do with some computational photograph added to each of the aquired image sets from the video.
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.
I’ve seen videos where people have put go-pro on top of their telescopic sight at a shooting range. It works well at distance. The two things that affect the acuity downrange are the quality of the glass and the humidity. I use NightForce scopes, and in Southern Nevada, when the humidity is one percent, you can read the text on a 100-yard target. In Crosbyton, Texas, and at twenty-two power (using the internal range finder reticle), when the humidity must be 100%, you can’t see anything. On the bright side of using a telescopic sight, if you don't like what you see, you can always pull the trigger.
Did you consider stacking the thousands of individual frames in your video images to increase resolution?
The Chinook narration killed me 😂
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.
That hilarious, ive had that spotting scope for years now. Ive been very happy with it
Love the ai nature documentary narrator
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).
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
Isaac, can you provide a link to the mirror lens?
Sony RX100 MkVII… incredible range AND an incredible digital zoom on top of that.
The green glow behind the video window.. nice touch!
Lol.. listening from a different room and lm like, "Why do i hear Destin?" 😂
Thank you Isaac
Edit: smarter every day is the goat
Absolutely.
Very interesting! You've started me wondering: 4 digits cost is doable by some, out of reach for others. I'm wondering what could be done with cheaper phones or webcams coupled with reflex optics. Also, have you looked into any cheap or open source solutions for optical motion detection, say we're watching for deer in the distant flower garden, but can't be waiting around, watching for the little darlings to drop by but want to be notified in real time? Keep at, good stuff!
Olympus OM-D and PEN bodies have built-in stabilisation and can be picked up pretty cheaply secondhand. The stabilisation even works with any old manual lens (you need to set focal length in a camera menu).
Nixon P1000 camera 24-3000 mm F2.8-8 Zoom. This thing is absolutely incredible. I purchased it for travel in the Antarctuc to photograph wildlife. Highly recommended.
Excellent commentary on direct optical surveillance. In order to maintain your security a trick is to use a pair of neutral or nude nylons or pantyhose and put that over the last lens element essentially at the end of the optical train. This prevents a flash or glare from the last optical element and maintains your site security so you are not sending a flashing message to who or what you are observing. This is a common special forces technique used on rifle scopes binoculars and spotting Scopes or telescopes. I would certainly recommend including that recommendation because otherwise you might as well have a strobe light on your hat. Thank you enjoyed your presentation please be safe.
Doc
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
Have you examined the lenses by Moment for the S24 Ultra?
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
1:01 I was, not kidding, expecting "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"
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,
Got it.... so can I duct tape the Sony cam to the spotting scope?
For mirage distorted static objects you might want to look into a trick amateur planetary astronomers use(d). In theory different parts of the image are in focus at different times. If you take a fairly high frame rate video of the shimmering object, software can look at each frame and identify which small parts are in focus and save those parts to one output image. Over time as different areas are caught in focus and added to the output image, the output image will become a sort of collage of in-focus parts that can be read. I am oversimplifying a little but that's the general idea. I don't know if that technique is still used or what it might be called but maybe you know someone who knows and can point you to some off the shelf and hopefully free software that will do it. Otherwise it might have to write your own code, maybe using OpenCV which probably has some useful functions for doing it.
Given the discussion on camera quality, what's causing your hands to look like they have faint blue stains on them from 17:22 onwards? Is that just because the Sony camera can't cope with the high contrast or is something else causing that effect? I'm assuming the contrast is too high for the camera because at 17:28 your fingers look overexposed.
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.
Obviously not exactly the same, but I've had crazy good results with the Nikon Coolpix line (I specifically use a P530), a lot of different models very cheap on ebay and the zoom is almost magical.
For those of us in the lower income brackets, a 10 year old bridge camera with a 40 - 50x lense is an option, most have digital zoom and video, too. There are compromises involved, of course. I picked up a Fuji 9150 for less than $75.
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.
I have the Bausch & Lomb Discoverer 15-60x spotting scope ($40 at goodwill) with a t-mount adapter for my Sony cameras.
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.
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.
Do you suggest the angled eyepiece on the spotting scopes, or the straight eyepiece, like what’s on the Leupold?
What camera / lens combo did you use for the first scenes? They look crisp, color grading looks on point as well.
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.
Those phone eye adapters work great for a pvs14 too
That spotting scope is a 20-60. Why did you not zoom in with it?
MORE T-REX ANIMAL PLANET GUY PLEASE!!!
Top quality channel. Earned my sub .
4:26 that's not even chromatic abbreviation, that is straight up halo.
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.
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
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.
What is the sensor size on the Sony? I wonder if the low light performance is partly related to the size of the sensor?
May be better to use the smaller, cheaper APSC (cropped sensor) camera like the ZV-E10 for this type of use because the cropped apsc sensor is natively more zoomed in by about 1.5x and can retain the full resolution of the sensor.
EDIT: saw he was trying to use apsc mode on the E1 but I think that sacrifices some of the detail than just using the native sensor.
Good point. I have this 12mp vlogger camera because it is so good at RUclips video production and shooting in low light, but I should have done more testing with that A7R3 because it has such a massive pixel advantage.
@@isaacbotkintrex video first it's hard to beat full frame sensors. 4k video is still 4k video. There's crazy Lenes like the tokina 900mm that on apsc is something like 1350mm native. Total package is right at 1000 bucks camera+lens.
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
A Bean bag for support makes a world a difference. For both usability and vibe obsorbtion
I too have been looking at those 10k+ Cannon lenses. I want one so bad, but they are so bloody expensive. If I never ate again, I could probably afford it in a few decades.
Kowa makes adapters to connect full frame cameras to a spotting scope