Yashica is a 75-year-old brand of traditional analog cameras that stopped manufacture in 2005 and has since tried its hand at Kickstarter projects with varied results. Its most recent crowdfunding campaign is for 4K night vision binoculars, which are a break from its traditional analog roots.
Yashica Night Vision, similar to the Sigweis Night Vision Binoculars, claims better full-color 4K video and clear 58MP stills even in complete darkness, thanks to a 0.0037lux sensitivity, three-level 850nm IR (infrared) illuminator, and f/1.0 aperture lens. In brief, you can see in color in the dark, with visibility up to 600m.
According to the Yashica Night Vision Kickstarter campaign, which launched in January 2024, full-color photographs display “more natural color reproduction and a higher dynamic range’ and are produced using artificial intelligence to improve image signal processing.
There are a few sample films on the page that give you an idea of what’s possible, but the Yashica Night Vision video advertisement does not include actual footage recorded with the product.
These are not the first night vision binoculars with full-color and infrared capabilities. The Sigweis model appears to feature the same design and most of the same gear, including a 3x optical and 5x digital zoom, a 4-inch TFT display with a 960×400 pixel screen, IP65 water and dust resistance, backlit controls, a compass, and up to 16 hours battery life.
The Yashica Night Vision, on the other hand, has greater specifications to existing binoculars, including 4K video and 58MP stills, as well as a bigger aperture f/1.0 lens, which should provide clearer images, and its manufacturers claim that the 600m viewing distance is twice that of existing rivals.
The Yashica Night Vision’s list price of $252 (about ₹20882.76 / AU$387) is therefore quite surprising. That looks a bit low for such a great sounding piece of nocturnal equipment. Furthermore, at the time of writing, the early bird Kickstarter price is only ₹14,517.7 (about ₹11,593.29 or AU$214).
Is the Yashica Night Vision too good to be true for nocturnal travelers? Dig a little deeper, and some of those headlines begin to unravel. The GalaxyCore CMOS sensor does have a Full HD 1080p resolution, not 4K; the higher resolution is reached through upscaling.
That being said, we’ll have to wait and see how successful the Yashica Night Vision is in practice, especially if Yashica is using AI to improve image quality.
Global shipping is available, with pricing based on the post-campaign supporter survey, with an estimated delivery date of May 2024. As with all crowd-funding projects, backing the project does not ensure receipt of the product or adherence to the expected timeline.
