Any reticle for any spotting scope

[magtech]

The other day I was thinking of a way to get a reticle spotting scope. Then it hit me, why not use a camera overlay. Maybe this has been done before maybe not. But here is how I figured a way to make get any reticle to use on any spotting scope. This isn't a Simple method, nor is it idiot proof.. But as a proof of concept, it works.

First I downloaded a camera overlay app, The one I found on Android was conveniently called "overlay camera"

This app allows me to import pictures and overlay them on my phone camera. I can adjust features of the overlay, such as size rotation opacity etc.
What this specific app doesnt let me do is overlay live video with a picture, but I currently I am just interested in looking through the camera live.

After downloading the app I needed to figure out a way to add a reticle as an overlay. If I download any reticle offline it would have a white background, which washes out the camera view. To get around this I went into a picture editor (Pain.net and GIMP both work) and deleted the background color. Depending on the program this required me to highlight and cut the reticle itself out, then delete the background. Doing this you have to save you picture as something other than a JPG. A PNG file worked perfectly for this.

Since my main scope is a XRS2 I decided to do this with the G3 reticle i pulled off an image. I chose the illuminated on I found online, but after doing the picture editing I could have just changed the color myself.

Here is the reticle i used as my base. After deleting the background I saved it as a PNG. This is what I was left with.

I sent this image to my phone and then used it with the overlay app to have a reticle.

Here is a picture of my setup. Nothing much, just a leupold kenai on an rt80c.

I have a board i use at exactly 100 yards that i marked with 1 MIL lines, measures with a caliper. I used this board to test my tracking on the XRS2, along with a home-built steel plate setup. The phone adapter is one i found on amazon the other night for $18... Im sure theres better out there... But it works for proof of concept.

Here is a picture of the camera overlay with the app. I sized the reticle to match up to the 1 MIL lines as best as I could in -6 F windchill weather.

The black lines are faint but it was merely proof of concept.

The hardest part is getting the camera aligned properly with this cheap camera adapter. Then matching the reticle to the board.

Some things that are a pain: you have to setup the reticle to the proper size every time you reload the app; not being able to zoom the camera of Spotting scope, without changing reticle size.


So what did this do for me over all?

It gave me the ability to overlay any reticle of my choosing to get a live view of a target. So if I want to spot for a friend I can do it with this and add the reticle of my choosing.

What this setup doesn't do... Probably many things, but the camera App itself doens't let me do video. So I cannot use this to shoot and replay my shots with a reticle overlay... But thats merely an app issue.. Maybe someone can find one that does what this can do, but with live video. I did a quick search and only found post video editors ( I didn't look hard).


Let me know what you guys think. If you want to try it and cant do the reticle editing, but can use the app... Let me know what reticles you want and i can upload them in here.

 

[Screehopper]

Interesting idea. I like it as a proof of concept. Seems like if you continue working on the project it can evolve.

I haven't found a good digiscoping option for my spotter yet either. I spend a lot of time adjusting the horizontal and vertical alignment of my smartphone. More zoom on the spotter than the image size gets small then alignment with the smartphone has to be perfect. This is the first step I need to solve.

 

[magtech]

I swapped to a fixed magnification eye piece on the spotting scope ( the variable with mine wasn't good). The fixed 30x isn't terrible though. Currently, I just zoom ( if necessary) with the phone. Then adjust the reticle accordingly. The system works if you want something to play around with.. it's just not stupid easy.

 

[Mortalpawn]

It looks like it might work Ok at a fixed known distance and power, but since the reticle is not first focal plane (FFP) you would need to change everything every time you adjust the power on the scope or the distance to target. So unfortunately it won't work for ranging unknown distance targets or typical spotting/identifying/milling like you might do with a tactical scope.

 

[magtech]

It looks like it might work Ok at a fixed known distance and power, but since the reticle is not first focal plane (FFP) you would need to change everything every time you adjust the power on the scope or the distance to target. So unfortunately it won't work for ranging unknown distance targets or typical spotting/identifying/milling like you might do with a tactical scope.

Ranging reticles for the razor are non-zoomable i.e. fixed mag. Same case here with my fixed mag eyepiece. Set your reticle up and you're good to go for that session.