Once it was mounted, accessing the controls of both scope and camera was simple and straightforward.  On the left-hand side of the tube, there's an access door which covers the battery compartment and memory card.

On the top of the eyepiece there is a display housing along with the manual shutter button.  Ahead of the display housing is the power ring, and on the Objective bell is the parallax adjustment.

The SmartScope is powered by a pair of Lithium Ion AA long-life batteries, which are included.  The 32Mb memory card is a SmartMedia card like those found in many regular digital cameras, and according to the specs, it will hold about 500 photos.  You could use any SmartMedia card, in case you want a bigger one, or just have two cards so you can swap out between the scope and your computer.

Also included with the scope is a SmartMedia card-reader for your PC, so you can download your photos via USB port, and a disc of photo software for editing your photos.  There's even a VHS videotape included, to show you how to use the SmartScope and download the photos.

Once the scope is turned on, there are two ways to take a photo.  By pressing the shutter button (it's recommended to squeeze both sides of the top housing, to hold the scope steady) you can manually take a photo.  In this way you can take "gotcha" photos of game and let them walk.  The scope also has the ingenious feature that, while it's turned on, the scope will automatically take a photo the instant you fire the rifle!

We didn't get to actually harvest any game with the SmartScope, but we got a few photos of animals in the field.

The quality of the photos is about what one would expect from a 1 Megapixel digital snapshot camera without a flash.  It does not do well in low-light conditions.

These photos were taken in a medium drizzle without a rifle rest (ie, normal field conditions), and that has affected the image sharpness.  As you can see, the crosshairs are part of the image.  In fact, the camera takes an image of exactly what you see through the scope, at whatever magnification you've selected with the power ring.

Running Axis buck at 100 yards.

Corn feeder at 250 yards.

Please note the original size of the photos direct from the camera is 640x480 pixels. I've resized the images to fit our page format.