Heads up, Star Wars fans: Sony has just made your next cosplay/LARPing session all the more authentic with the DEV-5 and DEV-3 binoculars. The high-tech eyepieces are the spitting image of Star Wars macrobinoculars and have the technology on board to match. The DEV binoculars use electronic eyepieces with continuous autofocus instead of the usual prisms and include Exmor CMOS sensors for capturing still images and AVCHD 2.0 HD video of whatever you're spying on.
The DEV-5 and DEV-3 can even record stereo audio, shoot 3D video and offer optical zooming up to 10x.
Sony's electrobinoculars do offer some manual focus fine-tuning for those moments when autofocus doesn't perfectly frame your subject. The 10x optical zoom can be enhanced to a 20x digital zoom at the cost of degraded image quality. While shooting 3D video, zoom is limited to 5.4x. Naturally, built-in image stabilization keeps those videos from being too jerky.
The DEV-5s include a GPS receiver for geo-tagging images and videos, and both models can record about three hours of 2D video before draining their rechargeable battery packs.
Too bad the DEV-5 and Dev-3 binoculars practically cost enough to be authentic Star Wars props: they'll retail for $2000 and $1400 this November. Spray paint 'em white, dress up in cold weather gear and you'll be the spitting image of Luke on his Tauntaun.
