Night vision equipment for mortals (2 Viewers)

[Mysticete]

Jon Hall review of a new thermal camera that seems to work about as well as much more expensive thermal scopes, but at only 400 bucks

Gear Review: Xinfrared T2 Pro Thermal Camera for smartphones – Mammal Watching

www.mammalwatching.com

 

[David_]

Maybe it’s just me, but a review of thermal camera on mammalwatching.com without any actual photos of mammals? The review says the camera was tested in the jungle and that you can easily take photos and videos. Why is the only photo of mammal (besides a human) a marketing image by the manufacturer?
Given the discount code and that he states that receives a bonus if anyone uses the discount code it seems more like marketing than a reliable review.

 

[opisska]

Well I really can't imagine Jon of all people distorting his review for some deal with the vendor ... I think it's more about that he used it for actual mammal search where you usually want to get white-light view as quickly as possible, in particular in forest, before the animal is lost.

Anyway, I am quite considering getting this - I have the Pulsar, but this thing can have several interesting use cases. If that happens, I will surely pick every tiny inadequacy of the thong apart in my review

 

[Farnboro John]

I did note that it runs your phone battery down quite quickly - in Sri Lanka we were using thermal scopes for up to five or six hours a night and it looks like this won't manage that. No doubt there are ways round it.

John

 

[jurek]

Lets wait for reports how it performs with distant animals and how long batteries last.

It would be great if there was a simple function: when detects a pixel warmer than, say, 30oC, sends vibration signal to the phone. I just realized that the night vision detects absolute temperature and later produces picture. This is often not good, because high contrast environment makes animals invisible - for example animals on warm rocks or arboreal mammals and owls on tree branches against the sky. If the absolute temperature was reported, it would pick the actual wildlife.

One could stop gawking at the screen all the time and simply sweep it over the habitat. Smaller risk of tripping over at night, easy to look behind you, easy to look up at treetops. One could sleep and leave the camera on - and get a warning when an animal appears. Hunters waiting for game would love it.

 

[stuarta21]

Looking to purchase my first Thermal Imager. I was planning to get the Pulsar Axion 2 xq35 but have seen the Hikmicro fq35 seems to have a higher spec for a relatively small increase in price, does anyone own or have experience of using the fq35? Use will primarily be finding birds at my local reserve such as Jack Snipe, Woodcock, Owls etc

 

[Steve Babbs]

I did note that it runs your phone battery down quite quickly - in Sri Lanka we were using thermal scopes for up to five or six hours a night and it looks like this won't manage that. No doubt there are ways round it.

John

Having a power pack attached to your phone should work okay. Although it may be a bit of a pain.

Edit: scrap that; I've now actually read the review and you plug the camera into the charging port.

 

[nmerc_photos]

thanks to everyone posting in this thread.. I have just recently come across thermal and it has caught my attention as being useful for owl photography

I was leaning towards the new Pulsar Telos LRF XP50, but have now been reading about the Hikmicro Falcon FQ50 pro. I just cannot seem to find a reliable seller here in the United States.

very cool pieces of technology all around

 

[Stonefaction]

thanks to everyone posting in this thread.. I have just recently come across thermal and it has caught my attention as being useful for owl photography

I was leaning towards the new Pulsar Telos LRF XP50, but have now been reading about the Hikmicro Falcon FQ50 pro. I just cannot seem to find a reliable seller here in the United States.

very cool pieces of technology all around

Looking up into trees for owls with a thermal imager is almost as 'hit and miss' as using your eyes. I have managed to see one or two - that I've heard first, but in general either the 'heat' of the sky or of the tree itself will make picking out a bird very difficult.

 

[Elkhornsun]

I have an active bat box and hopefully active barn owl nest box on my property. Inside the owl box I have a video camera with both daylight and night video capture. Outside of the nest box my options were limited.

I learned about and bought a Sony AX700 camcorder with IR Night Mode and it can shift the IR filters away from the sensor and allow the use of IR lights to illuminate an area. I bought the Sony HVL-LEIR1 battery powered light that can be switched between normal LED lighting and IR lighting. It runs for hours on two AA batteries (using rechargeable NiMh ones).

For the IR light source there are many options in terms of spread of the light and the intensity of the light and these are not going to be visible to animals, including bats and owls.

The AX700 camcorder can also be used to film subjects at 120fps and then replay them automatically at 24fps with no need to process the video - pretty slick.

​

 

[nmerc_photos]

Looking up into trees for owls with a thermal imager is almost as 'hit and miss' as using your eyes. I have managed to see one or two - that I've heard first, but in general either the 'heat' of the sky or of the tree itself will make picking out a bird very difficult.

In general, it would not be looking up in trees, they would be trees with other trees behind it. I have heard of many owl'ers being successful using this method especially for tree'd owls such as screech owls

 

[tenex]

... have now been reading about the Hikmicro Falcon FQ50 pro. I just cannot seem to find a reliable seller here in the United States.

The equivalent product in the US is AGM Sidewinder TM50-640. Vendors online. I've considered one myself.

I was mostly worried if FoV is on the narrower side for this model

I'd like to know what you (and Amadeus) concluded about this. I would have imagined the 35 easier to use than the 50 since these all have narrow FOV to begin with.

 

[nmerc_photos]

I've had my Pulsar XP50 LRF for about 2 weeks now and love it.

I've used it to spot all sorts of critters I wouldn't normally see. Mice around house/barn. Flying squirrels in tree canopies. Great Horned Owls across the river in the neighbor's trees. Short Eared Owls hunting in fields that I couldn't see with my naked eyes or normal binoculars.

I think these thermal monos are an indispensable part of my birding kit now. Looking forward to getting to use them more at the Sax Zim Bog this year.

I'm not too knowledgeable on the general specs, but I believe this one has a 2.5x magnification and I could definitely get more use out of 2x. There have been a number of times where looking around the yard, 2.5x was just too zoomed it. But also, a lot of the owl footage was shot from 300m away, and it's difficult to make out what's going on in the footage.

I'm interested in finding some cheaper ones to test out, and I'd also like to gift some to my dad for use in his life. I'll probably try to grab something around ~$1K USD. Maybe an XM30F or something

 

[tenex]

Thanks, the hunting owl is really nice. What animal is nosing around the tree in the last video, a small bear? (Having trouble with scale, even vs the rabbit.) What are the bright boxes on either side of the bird feeders... heaters?

 

[nmerc_photos]

Thanks, the hunting owl is really nice. What animal is nosing around the tree in the last video, a small bear? (Having trouble with scale, even vs the rabbit.) What are the bright boxes on either side of the bird feeders... heaters?

I believe it's a possum, with mice around it.

The bright boxes are just upside down plant pots to prevent squirrels from climbing the posts. My guess is that since they are black, they must hold in a lot of heat from the sun

 

[nmerc_photos]

went out with the thermal today for more testing, found a lifer for me which was a long eared owl

no way I would've been able to see this guy without the thermal. even once I knew where he was roughly, it was difficult to get between all the branches

I definitely could've benefitted from something with a wider FOV though. not sure how to calculate what this telos is, but I imagine 2x or 1.5x mag would be nice for close quarters in pines

 

[Birding Bricker]

I'm interested in how the Infrared T2 Pro performs in field tests - aside from Jon Hall's review there's virtually nothing I can find online. Several hunter videos on YouTube show them being used to seek out mammals but there's nothing I can find from the birding world.

If it works in helping to locate birds during the day/at night (for identification using regular optics (+/- torch)), then it's a way cheaper option than buying a dedicated thermal scope.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who would be really grateful for an honest appraisal of the capabilities of this device from anyone who has put it to the (birding) test. Thanks.

 

[pppppvvvv]

I honestly thought my Pulsar imager was broken a couple of days ago.
The image was picking out animals fine ( in fact what was subsequently confirmed in the binoculars as a short eared owl flying over a hare was a highlight!) The background, trees and landscape was totally blurred out.

I changed settings, brightness, contrast, but where I'm usually able to see features to measure where the subjects are, there was just noise.
It wasn't a damp, misty day, and no rain as such but there was a pretty strong cold wind. Has anyone notice strong wind degrading the view?

I can believe it could play a factor in degrading the weaker heat from trees, bushes etc as any moisture in the air would be moving fast causing noise perhaps?

It's been milder since, and visual quality is back to normal

 

[nmerc_photos]

I honestly thought my Pulsar imager was broken a couple of days ago.
The image was picking out animals fine ( in fact what was subsequently confirmed in the binoculars as a short eared owl flying over a hare was a highlight!) The background, trees and landscape was totally blurred out.

I changed settings, brightness, contrast, but where I'm usually able to see features to measure where the subjects are, there was just noise.
It wasn't a damp, misty day, and no rain as such but there was a pretty strong cold wind. Has anyone notice strong wind degrading the view?

I can believe it could play a factor in degrading the weaker heat from trees, bushes etc as any moisture in the air would be moving fast causing noise perhaps?

It's been milder since, and visual quality is back to normal

could be a silly question, but did you recalibrate it?

at least on my Pulsar, there's a way to manually calibrate and I have to do that a couple times during use if conditions change, IE if I leave it inside the heated car and then want to use it outside. something like that could have affected it

 

[nmerc_photos]

here are some more pics that I took at the Sax Zim Bog recently. I found it to be the most useful tool in my arsenal. my party found more wildlife than any of the competing groups, and we estimated 90% of them would've been missed without the thermal

pictured are Great Gray Owls, Squirrels, Snowshoe Hares, Eagles, Ravens, Ruffed Grouse, and photographers