06/04/2026
Lazing through foliage:
Users of laser range finders (LRFs) know that getting a distance to target is not always as simple as point and click. Sometimes LRFs throw back an incorrect distance simply because the reflectivity wasn’t good, there was something in the way, or something was more reflective than the intended target.
To counter this, rangefinders often implement a “best” “first” and “last” mode of assuming the correct target.
For “first”, it reports back the first thing that reflected with a strong signal within the beam divergence of the IR laser pulse.
For “last”, it was the last thing that reflected back strongly.
For “best”, if finds the best across the choices, which sometimes ironically is the “worst” because just because something is very reflective doesn’t mean it was what you wanted to laze (e.g. a shiny white rock or water as opposed to an animal beyond that rock or water).
However, for users of the 15K unit, both the first and last distances will be reported to allow the user to best determine which target they actually want the distance of. The large number in this picture is the “first” (277) the 2nd number smaller is the “last” (339). The 15K doesn’t use “best” for the contradiction issues explained earlier.
This is particularly helpful if you are competition in dense foliage or have trees obscuring your target, and allows you to build a frame of reference between two points and determine which is your actual target distance.
We can’t wait to get more time on these units in a variety of contexts, but they only continue to impress us.
