I am in the market for a fish finder, and I wondering if there is a good reason to have both down imaging and the traditional graph style in the same unit. I am  for sure going to get side imaging, but I don't know yet if I want, or need both down imaging and the traditional view. What are your experiences? 

Any unit with side imaging will also have down imaging and 2d.  All 3 views show different things in the water column.  The view I run most on a helix 10 is SI on top, 2d on bottom left, and DI on bottom right

Let me just add to get the biggest screen you can because when you start splitting screens, it gets really small really fast.  

Down imaging doesn't replace traditional sonar for me. DI views a “slice,” regular sonar views a “cone.”  When your boat is moving along slowly, each DI slice is taken in a slightly different location than the previous, and when stitched together and scrolled across the screen they present a nice, vivid picture.  This is sort of like how that light bar thing inside your scanner goes back and forth across the page to produce an image.

 

If you’re sitting still, the DI is still taking slices, but it’s the same slice over and over (or you might be rotating, drifting a little bit).  This is still showing you some of what’s down there, but the coverage is poor and you won’t be producing pretty pictures like they show in the manual.  Same for side imaging. It’s sort of like if the light bar thing in your scanner got stuck in one spot, or started randomly spinning around, drifting back and forth. In this case, the cone view of standard sonar is preferable (you could think of it like a ‘flashlight view’).  If I had to choose between only DI or only standard sonar, I would choose standard because DI is (IMO) pretty much useless while sitting still.  Many people use it while stationary, though.

On 5/18/2018 at 9:46 AM, Captain America said:

I am in the market for a fish finder, and I wondering if there is a good reason to have both down imaging and the traditional graph style in the same unit. I am  for sure going to get side imaging, but I don't know yet if I want, or need both down imaging and the traditional view. What are your experiences? 

Most 1st time sonar users struggle to interpret the more complex screen data. It takes time on the water so my advice is don’t go overboard with too many options at the same time.

GPS with 1’ elevation like Navonics maps is helpful. Traditional down looking sonar helps to determine water temps, both surface and thermoclines, depth, breaks and fish.

DI, down imaging, helps to separate fish targets from cover, however not easy to see the small dots. Scanning sonar both down and side are the same as DI just different directions.

The only real time data is the far right side of the screens traditional down looking sonar, everything else is a display of the things the transducer has passed over.

If you get a higher end units hire a good sonar bass guide to teach you how to use it.

Tom