Camcorder lazer gunsight

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WOOSHPREZ

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I let the cat out of the bag about the lazer sight I have installed on my camcorder. It is a real inconvienance that the manufacturers of camcorders have taken viewfinders off their units. I suppose taking video of little Johnny's birthday party is #1 with most people. I'll wager they'd never think that folks might want to try to capture video of a fire breathing smoking monster rocket up in the sky.

Anyhow, Garland Granzow showed up at a TWA launch a couple months ago and I noticed he had a cool sight mounted to his camera. He let me play with it and I was hooked. I had to put one on my camcorder. The sight is available at Gander Mountain. It is a $70 Barska illuminated red dot gunsight. As such it is made to clamp onto the gunsight of a firearm. I decided to mount mine onto the mounting hardpoint for a tripod on the camcorder. I procured a chunk of aluminum from Dan K. a fellow WOOSH member. Drilled and tapped holes on one side for the $5 gunsight mounting plate, other side of the bracket was drilled and tapped for a stud to fit into the hole on the bottom of the camcorder as well as a hole for the 1/4" threaded knob to tighten it in place.
The sight actually mounts upside down underneath my camcorder in order for me to be able to open the LCD screen and use it and the gunsight at the same time. It takes a little practice to look through it but it works great as it is an open sight and you don't need to put your eyeball right into it to see through it. You just look through the window. The lazer target is only projected onto the glass of the sight, it doesn't beam out past that. You can choose differant targets, in the picture I posted looking through the sight you can see the circle and dot just above the weber grill. I don't know why it looks so small in the photo. It is a lot bigger and easier to see than that in use but I'm surprised the photo turned out at all.
There is also a couple of sizes of dots as well as a crosshair target you can choose.
The unit is turned on and off my twisting a dial on the top of the gunsight from 0 to 7 which makes it dimmer or brighter or off.
I haven't had a lot of time to video rockets since I put this on but it did help me stay on that Gemini Titan at NSL. I'm pretty happy with the way this has turned out.

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Great idea, Scott. The lack of a viewfinder is one major reason why I have not upgraded to a digital camcorder. Trying to follow any kind of action using that stupid swing-out display is awfully tough, especially in bright light.

I have a red-dot finder intended for Daisy BB guns mounted on my telescope. I wonder if I could stick it on a camcorder as well.

When you use the lazer sight, do you also use the swing-out display at the same time? Do you need to close one eye to use the lazer sight?
 
Obviously not as nice as the gun sight, but I remember seeing someone with a body tube taped to the top of his video camera. He claimed it was very useful for keeping the rocket in the center of the frame when he was zoomed in on it.
 
Great idea, Scott. The lack of a viewfinder is one major reason why I have not upgraded to a digital camcorder. Trying to follow any kind of action using that stupid swing-out display is awfully tough, especially in bright light.
I feel your pain...

I have a red-dot finder intended for Daisy BB guns mounted on my telescope. I wonder if I could stick it on a camcorder as well.

When you use the lazer sight, do you also use the swing-out display at the same time? Do you need to close one eye to use the lazer sight?

That's the beauty of the open sight. You can look right through it with both eyes open. Mounting it upside down under the camcorder does allow me to use both the sight and the LCD screen at the same time but you can only look through one at a time. Glancing back and forth will take practice.
SG
 
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