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Frame from INCREDIBLE ZOOM | Nikon P1000 | Ben Lomond | Scotland Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

INCREDIBLE ZOOM | Nikon P1000 | Ben Lomond | Scotland

The Hovering Scotsman
Demos
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2020–2023 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited as an eye-opening demonstration of how much a consumer camera can resolve at long range, relevant to privacy and surveillance threads.

Footage shot with a Nikon P1000 superzoom camera showing extreme optical zoom on distant targets from Ben Lomond in Scotland.

“Check out this zoom test and you can see people 3.5 miles away it will blow your mind.” (HN, 2023)

1 recommendations · 3 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@14 Oct 2023 Recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: How hackable are the Meta smart glasses?
Really who cares if they can discretely take your photo out in public. You have no expectation of privacy in public and totally legal to take someone’s picture. In fact if they had say a Nikon p1000 they could very clearly take your picture from a mile away. Check out this zoom test and you can see people 3.5 miles away it will blow your mind. From a mile it would be trivial. [this video]
Zoom test showing people 3.5 miles away.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@14 Sep 2020 Cites it
on HN thread 'You're Not Allowed to Film': The Fight to Control Who Reports from Portland
I was just looking at the zoom of the Nikon p1000 and from over 3 miles away you can easily zoom in and read a piece of paper. Even if these people don’t want someone recording them on the ground, a camera could literally be so far away they would not even see it recording them. It just seems ignorant. I pretty much assume I am being recorded at all times and act as such. Too many hidden cameras, security cameras and cameras so good I would not even see them in action. [this video]
Shows extreme zoom range of the Nikon P1000.
@walrus01 Mar 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Small, cheap spy satellites mean there’s no hiding place
Unless something dramatic changes in the field of optics, lenses and how to deal with atmospheric blur at those distances, resolving features smaller than 15-20cm from low earth orbit remains a low probability. Take a look at some youtube videos of a Nikon P1000 at maximum zoom looking through ordinary atmosphere at some distance away for an example. [this video]
Example of atmospheric blur limiting long-distance zoom.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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