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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Top 5 recommended night sights between £150-500? (1 Viewer)

M

Maverick777

Member
Hi,

Re:Top 5 recommended night sights between £150-500?

I have read through the various comments and I may have missed the answer. But could we have the Top 5 recommended night sights between £150-500? please. Either from personnel use or on different reviews. I have googled and seen various threads showing the top 10 for 2016, but it fails to mention why they are in the top ten.

Kind Regards Maverick

:scribe:
 
Maverick777 said:
Hi,

Re:Top 5 recommended night sights between £150-500?

I have read through the various comments and I may have missed the answer. But could we have the Top 5 recommended night sights between £150-500? please. Either from personnel use or on different reviews. I have googled and seen various threads showing the top 10 for 2016, but it fails to mention why they are in the top ten.

Kind Regards Maverick

:scribe:
Click to expand...


Orion makes pretty good sight at night through a pair of decent binoculars, and its free!

Maverick, this is the binoculars forum where we don't (usually) discuss hunting issues or products.

Good luck elsewhere.

Lee
 
Hello Maverick,

As Lee so kindly pointed out, this forum is about binoculars. And although night sights are not always used for hunting, the topic of sights (or any other type of optic) are not discussed here. I would suggest going to a discussion forum dedicated to sights in general (often a guns/shooting website). I would happily wager that at a sights forum, you will find a sub-section about night sights.

I would also suggest that once you are at the appropriate forum, that you mention if you want handgun night sights, or something for a rifle. The two types of night sights are vastly different, so a post that someone takes the time to write will be useless if the post happens to be about the opposite of what you are wanting.
 
Thank you both, I am pleased that no discussion is made of hunting. I am enquiring as I am involved in dog rescue and wanted some advice before attempting to purchase something that would assist with finding lost scared dogs who are reluctant to show themselves. Many go missing when spooked and I didnt want to waste valuable funds on purchasing the wrong product on limited means. I thought this forum may not involve hunting which is why I chose to ask the questions here as you folks may have the technical know how I was after. Kind Regards
 
Maverick777 said:
Thank you both, I am pleased that no discussion is made of hunting. I am enquiring as I am involved in dog rescue and wanted some advice before attempting to purchase something that would assist with finding lost scared dogs who are reluctant to show themselves. Many go missing when spooked and I didnt want to waste valuable funds on purchasing the wrong product on limited means. I thought this forum may not involve hunting which is why I chose to ask the questions here as you folks may have the technical know how I was after. Kind Regards
Click to expand...

War gamers and hunters would be the groups that have the most night vision experience. Birders generally don't do much at night except for owling.
Bat specialists probably have some experience as well, but they tend to be too poor for night vision gear.
The best values are probably war surplus gear, although they are generally hopeless for repair. IR goggles are the cheapest option, even if you factor in an IR searchlight, usually a necessity to get more than a few feet range from that gear. The nice thing is that warm blooded animals really shine in IR light, so your target pooches will be easily spotted.
True night vision devices with image amplifiers tubes are usually much more costly than your budget would allow, plus they don't highlight living beings as much as IR goggles do.
 
What about using a friendly trained dog to find hidden and scared dogs?

I would have thought that a dog psychologist/trainer might give good advice on how to locate hidden or lost dogs.

A good thermal camera would probably also work.
 
If you know of any thermal scopes in the same bracket, I'm all ears? I was wandering how you think a dog trainer etc could assist with locating a lost dog in such a large area? I was hoping to purchase a night sight as they are readily available, whereas trained dogs are and few between. We could consider divine intervention, but I just wanted advice on a scope.
 
I would have thought than a night vision monocular rather than a sight/scope would be more useful. In that price bracket you are probably looking at a digital unit. Take a look at scottcountry.co.uk and you will see quite a few examples such as by Pulsar. Thermal imagers are generally quite a bit more expensive, as are newer generation image intensifiers (aka 'tubed' night vision as opposed to digital). Hope that helps
 
Maverick777 said:
Thanks Lee. I will leave PM unread so I remember to get back to you. Cheers
Click to expand...

Mav

Sorry if I got your hopes up but it turns out that 95% of what the company I know sells is for military only and the tiny balance is way over your budget.

As a long term solution a trained dog is definitely the best one. In the Western Isles the programme to eradicate Mink was accelerated enormously when they trained a handful of dogs to sniff out Mink. Dogs can cover ground at an enormous speed compared with a human and they love finding things. Training a dog to 'find' based on sniffing a missing dog's bed blanket or basket or kennel would be easy. If this is a challenge for you I bet your local police dog handlers section would love to help out.

Keeping a dog is a whole step up in committment and responsibility and cost though but if there is a group of you perhaps this could be shared.

Good luck.

Lee
 
A couple of nights ago, from a couple of hundred metres away, I was studying the massive and complex buttress roots of a giant Subtropical Strangler Fig tree which was very dimly lit in a thick rainforest. I watched until complete darkness fell. Even during the day this tree is dimly lit due to forest canopy.

The two binoculars I used were the Fujinon fmtsxr 7x50 and the Swine hunters delight, the Zeiss 8x56 BGATP. On this occasion, as full darkness fell, I was astonished to see the Zeiss 8x56 outperform the Fujinon which, through my eyes, had never been outperformed by the Zeiss before. I could still see some very faint detail of buttress root outline through the Zeiss. All of my other binoculars had given up long before this. I was very impressed and can see why this older Zeiss is still made/or was until recently...the FOV is not great, but that meant nothing when trying to detect specific detail in what appeared to be an almost fully darkened environment.

I realise that the specs of the Zeiss should indeed favour it, but I have never before observed this to be the case in more general low light use, possibly due to the higher light transmission of the Fujinon.

This time however the Zeiss definitely came out on top.
 
Hi Maverick

I agree that a trained dog is by far the best option for finding other dogs. A couple of years ago my wife and I were out birding and she headed back to the car while I carried on, just as she got near the car she saw a bird that she knew I'd be interested in and on a hunch told our dog to go fetch me - although I had gone a long way off the path through thick cover the dog found me at once. We later tried repeating the experiment (thinking it might come in handy some day) and our dog has no problem tracking either of us at least over a mile distance or so (this with an untrained dog).

Of the night vision options thermal has come down in price hugely recently and has the advantage that no illumination of any sort is needed plus it will work in mist, fog etc. The problem is though that they work best in open country, looking for an animal in vegetation may be fruitless. You may be able to hire some of the latest thermal gear to see how it works out (it could be the kind of project where a supplier might even loan you one if it catches their interest).

Best of luck

Phil

P.S. One option that may be worth considering is a trail camera next to some bait (or more than
one). Works 24/7 in all weathers and cameras are available for around £50
 
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Hi,
People I know who live in the countryside when taking their dogs out for a walk in the dark attach a small flashing neon light to the dogs collar. These are the same as used by cyclists and you can see the light flashing in the pitch black at some distance, just a thought.

Chris.
 
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