TTArtisan Dot Sight Review: A Useful Tool For Bird Photography

This is a review of the TTArtisan Dot Sight. Technically a red dot sight for your camera. I've been using this sight for a couple of weeks and honestly I've been quite impressed with it. Not an everyday thing, but useful, nonetheless.

Thanks for watching, cheers!

Chapters --
00:00 Introduction
00:24 What Is A Dot Sight?
01:48 Calibrating and Configuring
02:51 Out In The Field
06:13 Wrap Up

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#nikonz9 #ttartisan #dotsight
[this is not a paid or sponsored review]

[alexanderkraus]

Hmm... I don't really think people understand the real purpose for a dot sight the way you explained it.
I use the dot sight mainly to shoot birds in flight with very long tele lenses (600 to 1200mm). First step is indeed the calibration, but this doesn't need to be done prior to every single shot!. It needs to be done at the beginning of a shooting session after you have mounted the dot sight on top of your camera. You put your camera on a tripod and look for a fixed target in 200-400m distance. Looking through the viewfinder (or at the back screen) you place the target exactly in the center. Fix the position of the tripod head. Now look through the dot sight towards the target and turn the adjustment wheels until the dot is placed exactly over the target. Done. Unlock your tripod head.
Set the AF of the camera to wide field and activate bird recognition (and eye detection) if the camera offers these features.
Now you are ready to go: If you see a bird flying just aim towards it through the dot sight and fire the camera! Looking through the dot sight you can easily follow the flying bird keep firing the camera. Better don't try to switch tho the viewfinder. If you do this, it is very easy to lose the bird in the viewfinder!
Of course you will not have a 100% success rate. Somtimes the AF will just not lock in, sometimes you won't be able to to align the dot perfectly with bird and get some pictures with the bird being partially cut off (especially when using extremely long focal lengths) but all in all, the yield of usable shots will be surprisingly high - higher than by viewing to the viewfinder!
The big problem with the viewfinder is the extremely narrow depth of field! If the focus of the lens it too far off, it happens that you may even correctly targeting at the bird, but still you don't see it because it too much out of focus. It can take rather long to finally catch the bird in your viewfinder. Oftentimes, it just takes too long and the bird is gone before you can even target it. In such cases the dot finder is extremely helpful.
You look with two eyes open and you can always see the bird sharply and you have a wide field of view! You just need to align the dot and the bird. And even if you are unable to follow it for a second, it is very easy to catch up with again.
On the other hand, if you loose the bird with your viewfinder, your AF starts hunting and you have to blindly estimate how far and in which direction the bird has moved. Chances are high that you lose it forever.
The dot sight is also helpful for a quick "pre targeting" to find a bird sitting the the bushes or a tree at shorter distances (even if the dot sight is not perfectly calibrated for these distances). Looking through the viewfinder you again face the problem shallow depth of field. It is even more shallow at short distances and you may not be able to see the bird, even if the focus is only a little bit off. Thus, it can take annoyingly long to find a bird in a tree with a 600 or 840mm lens! The dot sight is extremely helpful in these instances, too. Here, I usually switch to the viewfinder after I found the bird in the dot sight, because the risk of loosing a sitting bird is not so high.
Hope this helps...
Regards,
Alex

[carlmcneill]

I've seen videos of people using red dots like you use on guns but I didn't know any camera gear manufacturer was making one. I think these are very handy for the lower end mirrorless cameras like my z6 II. Mainly for when you shoot in burst mode because of the screen blackout. I've used mine at an air show and it was hard to track the planes once you start shooting. You don't know where the plane is in the frame. A red dot would definitely help with that. I have a z8 now so I no longer have to worry about screen blackout. I use my z6 II for other things now. I can see how a red for can really help when using a long focal length. It's not always easy to find the doing when zoomed all the way in. I may have to check into this.

[jaxsonmaggie]

Thanks for this. What is that mini tripod you're using at 3:13? Thanks.

[peterjackhandy]

I suspect those saying this is a gimmick & not necessary, don't try to shoot birds in flight with a long (600-900mm) lens whose super tight field of view makes any bird flying into your natural FoV extremely difficult to locate through the viewfinder.
However, my preference to this copy of the OM1 & (super-expensive) Nikon originals, is an airsoft red-dot sight on an 11mm pikaninny rail to hot-shoe adaptor:
Works well, is robust & cheaper.
BUT - whatever you use you need autofocus/tracking that really sticks.

[vincentcestmois]

Thanks for the review, but do you need to recalibrate depending on focussing distance like if you shoot at minimal focus distance, I'd like to use this for Proxi photo with dragonflies but also flying birds. Idealy I don't want to have to recalibrate between proxi photo and flying birds photo (given the same focal length)

[crawford]

Red dots of course have been used on weapons for a long long time. Also in Astronomy to easily acquire the celestial object. In the photo world we called it a sports finder. I'm surprised the photo-world has lagged behind on its use.

[thebitterfig]

I think something meaningful here is that the TTArtisan model is just a heck of a lot cheaper than the Olympus or Nikon equivalent models, just under half the price. They’re all fairly simple, with little in the way of electronics or optics, so it’s not like getting a cheap lens or battery. Much easier for someone who dabbles in birding to justify. Maybe “proper technique” can render such a tool irrelevant, but developing that technique is non-trivial. For someone who only shoots wildlife occasionally, seems like it could be helpful.

[DivinePonies]

Feels like if you use viewfinder with both eyes open it removes need for red dot almost completely.

[bobnason]

They also don't lend themselves to being readily available in your bag because of the calibration requirement.

[prmy]

First time seeing that prone tripod/gimbal like thing. What exactly is it?

[mikebreazeale]

WTF!? Seems pretty ... NOT needed to me. Seems a little silly...

[RasikaFernando]

Sorry, to say this tool is a gimmick and simply useless and Extra step for nothing…