Heads Up Display

If you've ever looked at a gun sight in a modern fighter aircraft you'll probably have seen some form of HUD - Heads Up Display. It is a design that allows the pilot to aim his guns or missiles without having to bend forward to look into an eyepiece or squint at crosshairs or into iron sights. Most HUD's are projected images or lights onto an internal screen in the cockpit that is linked to where the weapons are going to impact. The best ones have computer tracking and prediction for lay-off. Well, we're not generally shooting down MiG's at Camera Electronic, and you may not be doing so out at your house*, but there are a number of times when we are trying to get a long lens to see a distant subject but we have no idea how to bring the lens to bear upon it. Air shows, wildlife, birds, and sports shots come to mind. We may have a great long lens that delivers crisp shots but we find ourselves waving all around the heavens while trying to track the subject and we rarely ever get on when the best shot presents. This is particularly a problem for the users of the superzoom compact cameras like the Nikon Coolpix P1000. It has a lens that is the focal length equivalent of 3000 mm and if you're trying to track grizzly bears or Bear bombers you are in deep trouble at the long end of the lens. The Nikon DF M1 sight is designed for the P1000 and presents a clear HUD for the lens even in the longest setting. You can specify any one of three patterns of dot and circle on the screen and pick red or green as the display. Then when you go to the long zoom you put the dot on the target and track it with the assurance that the 3000mm equivalent lens is going to be doing the same thing. Some people rely upon it as an entire sight and some just as an aid to get in the ballpark - shifting their eye to the camera viewfinder once they are near enough. I think every camera maker should have one of these in their lineup. Or at least make a lens hood with a metal gunsight and an eye post that you can put on the camera's hot shoe. I could certainly use one at dance shows! Note that Hasselblad used to make a gunsight for their longest 500mm lens that had crosshairs and a rubber ring in it for targeting. You felt like a flak gunner using it. * Now my Little Studio is another matter entirely...