At first glance, the new arrival looks like a rugged traditional binocular, with which it also shares strength, compactness, and ease of handling.
We had the opportunity to get a sneak peek, hands-on look at the fascinating eDiscovery 10×42 bino from Steiner-Optik GmbH, a leading manufacturer of premium binoculars and riflescopes for marine, hunting, outdoor, military, and sporting use.
Don’t be fooled by its appearance: this is not a standard binocular, but the first in the world capable of recording photos and videos. Not surprisingly, Steiner presents it with the appealing tagline: “Observe. Capture. Share.”
A successful marriage of analog and digital
The optical portion of the eDiscovery combines 10x magnification, an ideal value for handheld use, with large 42 mm objective lenses. By gathering plenty of light, they deliver clear images even in difficult conditions such as dawn, fog, or backlighting.
Image quality is further enhanced by Steiner’s proprietary autofocus system, which, once the diopter correction has been adjusted to the user’s eyesight, delivers the highest possible sharpness.
To all this, Steiner adds high-level electronics that make it possible to capture 13-megapixel photos and 4K video, complete with audio.
This combination offers a major advantage: quite apart from excellent image quality, even if we somehow managed to drain the battery despite its long runtime — and had no power bank available to connect via USB-C — the instrument would still remain fully usable as a conventional binocular.