This is my Prismatic Compass, I inherited it from my late grandfather, it was issued to him in during his service in the army. It is truly an honor to get to learn how to use and enjoy using this compass.
I use it for all the same functions as the lensatic but find that I am able to take more accurate bearings with this one, due to the prism that allows me to look through the sight and look at the compass plate at the same time.
My favorite things about this compass:
very small and lightweight
belt pouch is compact and easy to open/close
the tight-wire sighting is very cool looking, and the narrow sighting opening helps me keep my reading accurate by helping keep objects in sight
This is my lensatic compass. I received it as a christmas present and I love wearing on my belt when I go out ever since. It is very rugged and sturdy, I haven't dropped it yet but if feels as if it could survive rolling down a rocky hill. It also is very easy to use for sighting (getting a bearing from) objects or landmarks.
The angled crosshair sight, and the rear lens (where the compass get its name) makes lining up a tree, mountain top, radio tower, or anything in the sights and taking a bearing a breeze.
There are two ways I use this compass in the field and the first is to find the bearing of an object in my field of view in order to help me locate myself using the reverse bearing and a map (if i know the object im looking at), or to get a bearing on an object in order to determine what it is I am looking at (if i know my location on a map or with GPS). This can be a very fun exercise and also very enjoyable addition to trips through the hills, discovering what landmarks are visible in the distance. It is a simple procedure of taking a bearing on the object, then using either a GPS and a waypoint, or a baseplate+map+pencil to extend this bearing from your current location and see what it intersects.
I will go into more detail about this later.
Now the second way I use this compass, and the one that has much more practical value, is for finding a landmark along my bearing to help me keep my heading (direction I am traveling) aligned with the bearing(direction of the location I want to get to).
Here is a scenario for how this is done:
My GPS says that there is a cache half a mile from my location at 180degrees/directly south (for now we will assume magnetic, I will explain declination and the difference between True North and Magnetic North later)
I know I will be walking for quite a while before I am near the cache and would like to enjoy the view, or talk with friends, without consulting my compass/gps/map every few hundred feet or slight fork in the trail so I am going to find a highly visible landmark to use as my bearing
I take out my lensatic compass and rotate until my bearing is 180degrees then i look up through the crosshairs and look for a landmark that is further away that is further away than my destination and relatively close to the same bearings (eg, visible through the scope)
Examples of good landmarks for this purpose are
radio towers
mountain tops (with a pointy not flat top)
small buildings
tall/unique and "lonley" trees
now that I now I am heading to something that is between me and a visible landmark I can put away all my devices/maps/compasses and simply walk towards that landmark as the terrain and trail allows and when I feel I have covered enough ground I can get out my GPS and compass and start to zero in on the cache I am hunting down.
An alternate method with the same technique is to choose landmarks that are much closer, like a tree on the other side of a field, and continuously move to a landmark, check your bearing, sight a new landmark, and repeat until you reach your final destination. In places where GPS signal is weak or "Jumpy" I find that this "bunny hopping" between sighted landmarks can help keep me on a straighter path.
Lastly here are some of the things I love about this compass
Bubble level helps ensure acurate readings by aoiding tilt
The faceplate of the compass is visible when the sighting lid is closed
Its large and square bottom makes it great for placing on flat surfaces for extra acuracy
Reverse bearings sure i could just subtract 180 but this compass is built for speed!
It just looks so "heavy duty"
This is a Baseplate Compass. It should be the first compass you ever use because it is very easy to learn how to use, it has a wide variety of uses, and it is a type of compass you will probably never stop using.
I go out into the field with three different compasses for different purposes but this one is always close at hand, in my pocket or literally in my hand.
After getting a bearing (don't worry that will be covered later) this little guy in your hand can keep you on track to that bearing, by simply aligning the arrow on the top with your bearing (make sure it is magnetic, we will cover that in Declination) and then be sure to keep the red compass arrow lined up with the north indicator (the red lines and red N on the rotating bearing plate). This process of lining up the compass arrow with north is often referred to as "putting the dog in the house" but again that is a topic for another day.
Aside from keeping on a bearing the square edges and transparent faceplate makes this compass very convenient for use with maps. There will be a detailed video in the future about using a baseplate compass with maps but here is just a list of some of the things it can help you do:
draw declination lines
get a bearing from a known location on a map to a landmark
trace a reverse bearing from a known landmark on the map towards your position on the map
identify the bearing of a road or trail on a map
measure distances on a map
This is just an introduction to the things that this simple little compass can do, it is truly a powerful and versatile instrument and there is always more to learn about using it.