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

Night vision equipment for mortals (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

Just wondered if there were any updated opinions or recommendations on this topic, I'm particularly interested in the usefulness of thermal imaging in general day-to-day birdwatching (whats the usable range for snipes/rails in reeds, warbler in a bush/tree etc)?
Thanks in advance
I swept an area of farmland yesterday, and it picked out Linnets in grass at over 50 metres away.
I suspect the conditions yesterday were perfect as it was quite cold, so the birds would stand out. Nothing else was getting any heat.

On sunny days, you get a lot of noise from exposed branches and leaves that are getting heated up by the sun, so I'm pretty sure the maximum range would be lower. I'd guess 30 metres is consistently ok for Passerines.

Insects and stuff it picks up to about 10 metres, I'm guessing

If you were to use it constantly as you walk, It picks up just about everything up before they are aware of you, or they are hunkered down relying on camouflage.

It doesn't work well against the sky, or with a lot of sky in background. I think the sky is seen as cold, and birds, trees, all register as "hot". I haven't tried zooming in to just look at the tree with much less sky perhaps.
 
I purchased a Pulsar XM30 a couple of months ago. For roughly £1,000 the technology in your hand is amazing.

OK, the viewing experience is superior in more expensive models, but I rationalised that I was just after heat signals and wasn't wanting any recording functionality. I particularly like the starting magnification of 2.5x (quite a bit higher in some of the better models which isn't as good for scanning).

Like others on this thread, I've had great views of Jack Snipe without flushing, and recently scanned a woodland where a Red-flanked Bluetail had recently been found, supporting those looking and with bins, that it wasn't in the area.

It didn't work as well as I'd hope in Oman's deserts / mountains as even in the middle of the night looking for owls as there were too many competing heat signals from 'hot spots' (distance didn't help). I did nevertheless find a roosting Pallid Scops-owl (sheer luck as I must have only checked a dozen or so bushes and was starting to get bored!).

Some birders I met in Oman brilliantly found Bruce's Green-pigeon using their Pulsar (which we wouldn't have seen without the equipment).

As a relative newbie with one of these, is there anyone more experienced that could share their default setup when looking for birds. I have mine more or less on factory settings with contrast on 2 out of 10. I'd be happy to try others' recommendations.

Many thanks

Mike
 
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I haven't settled on optimum settings, or even a colour pallette, switching between black, white and multi coloured.
Black hot seems to give the best view of background/features.

I also use mine held side on, the screen in "portrait", so sweeping horizontally you cover more area per sweep
 
Used my Pulsar again at the London Wetland Centre for Snipe-hunting. Now I know there are 7 and where to go looking. It’s fun to tell others which blank bunch of reeds to look at to spot a sleeping snipe. It was sunny, so I was pleasantly surprised that it seemed to work just as well as last time when it was overcast.

Peter
 
Has anyone tried the Guide TD210 Compact? On paper the spec seems reasonable and at a significantly better price than the higher end models.
 
We should do an IR meetup to test those things in the same conditions :) There is a mammalwatching meetup in September in Spain, that's actually where a lot of those things may congregate but I am not coming ...
 
We should do an IR meetup to test those things in the same conditions :) There is a mammalwatching meetup in September in Spain, that's actually where a lot of those things may congregate but I am not coming ...
Folks

What's the current state of play with this stuff? I've been intrigued as more and more people seem to be using it. Which one should I go for, which ones do to really like now?

Get the impression Jan gets good results judging by his reports.
 
Probably night vision equipment would be best presented alongside binoculars on field days and birding festivals? Night vision equipment can be evaluated and is useful at daytime (except in hot days, especially on rocky areas).

Currently makers of this equipment are few little companies which aim for hunters. Maybe they are even unaware of the interest among mammal and bird watchers.
 
Folks

What's the current state of play with this stuff? I've been intrigued as more and more people seem to be using it. Which one should I go for, which ones do to really like now?

Get the impression Jan gets good results judging by his reports.
Pulsar axion key 22.
The battery failed on mine a week or so ago. Must have been charged 6-10 times.
Pulsar and UK distributor seem pretty cold about it so far, the battery being a few months out of its 1 year warranty, and offering me nothing other than to buy a new battery (£45).

So I'm not getting an excellent support feel so far. They may surprise me, who knows. Won't lose too much sleep over it, but mentioning in case this becomes a recurring theme with this company. (If this was their attitude to a failed unit a few months outside it's 3 year warranty, then we could have much bigger problems).

I recall one of the reasons for buying this model was the user changeable batteries, so I can't have it both ways I guess!

The model works well in telling me there is an animal present. I'm not convinced that spending double or triple the money will give you any more info. You'll still need to switch to binoculars and/or torch to get to species level in most cases.
Field of view is pretty grim, but doesn't really matter as you tend to sweep the area, find something, switch to binoculars.

For birders, general wildlife watching, the question must be, how cheap can you go whilst still getting similar results?
 
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Probably night vision equipment would be best presented alongside binoculars on field days and birding festivals? Night vision equipment can be evaluated and is useful at daytime (except in hot days, especially on rocky areas).

Currently makers of this equipment are few little companies which aim for hunters. Maybe they are even unaware of the interest among mammal and bird watchers.

the company Pulsar had a stand at the Global Bird Fair in Rutland (U.K.) over the weekend. A member of a ringing group was explaining how the equipment was used to find and catch (for ringing) Common Snipe and Jack Snipe. Unfortunately they weren’t in a marquee with the other manufacturers of optics.

But, perhaps, this is the start of further awareness of the usefulness of this equipment.
 
Soo..., thinking of taking the plunge and buying a device. There are scare stories on the web about imagers being controlled items. I looked at the UK regs and it wasn't clear to me. Here's a response I got from the exports team [wrt Helion 2 XP pro which I used as an example]:

"The Pulsar Helion 2 XP pro is a thermal spotter. It doesn’t have the cross hairs required for targeting and is not able to be mounted like a weapons sight. It is not controlled under the military list.

However, as a thermal camera (with a refresh rate of over 9Hz), this item is controlled under rating 6A003b4b and will require a licence for export (as a dual use item)."

Plenty of people have travelled with their devices without an export license. But this is the official position. My understanding is now that you need an export license even if just taking on holiday.
 
Yeah, I've taken mine away a few times & even used it in a country where I've since been told they're illegal but I've never had a problem but it is a bit of a worry - travelling with something for your own use doesn't really fit my understanding of export but I probably won't take it away again just in case
Soo..., thinking of taking the plunge and buying a device. There are scare stories on the web about imagers being controlled items. I looked at the UK regs and it wasn't clear to me. Here's a response I got from the exports team [wrt Helion 2 XP pro which I used as an example]:

"The Pulsar Helion 2 XP pro is a thermal spotter. It doesn’t have the cross hairs required for targeting and is not able to be mounted like a weapons sight. It is not controlled under the military list.

However, as a thermal camera (with a refresh rate of over 9Hz), this item is controlled under rating 6A003b4b and will require a licence for export (as a dual use item)."

Plenty of people have travelled with their devices without an export license. But this is the official position. My understanding is now that you need an export license even if just taking on holiday.
 
Pulsar axion key 22.
The battery failed on mine a week or so ago. Must have been charged 6-10 times.
Pulsar and UK distributor seem pretty cold about it so far, the battery being a few months out of its 1 year warranty, and offering me nothing other than to buy a new battery (£45).

So I'm not getting an excellent support feel so far. They may surprise me, who knows. Won't lose too much sleep over it, but mentioning in case this becomes a recurring theme with this company. (If this was their attitude to a failed unit a few months outside it's 3 year warranty, then we could have much bigger problems).
I was looking to buy a Pulsar XG35 but spoke to 2 companies who have stopped stocking them because og high failure rates and poor service. So I’m about to (currently on holiday so a few weeks) buy a Hikmicro GQ35 - apparently their service is uk based and excellent. But who knows - could get someone on a bad day.
 
We did a small comparison of three IR scopes - see Mammal Watching Europe | Facebook

For FB-avoiders, I copy the text here:
Yesterday me and Ivana Ebrova met with Jan Studecký and Honza Grünwald in a rather random site at a roadside in fields near Prague to compare our three thermal scopes - our Pulsar Helion XQ38F against their Pulsar Axion XM30F and Thermtec CP325. For me this was the first time I ever looked through another IR scope so I was excited to see the comparison.
The Helion and the Thermtec are very similar - it looks like their physical abilities are next to identical and the main difference is in the presentation - the Thermtec allows more customization of the view and with the very high contrast and processing Jan is using, animals are a bit more prominent against the background than with our settings on the Helion, but ultimately, we saw very similar performance, despite the Thermtec being quite a bit cheaper. One thing the Thermtec really wins on is battery life at several times the (already impressive) lifetime of the Helion.
The Axion is really tiny compared to the other two and that brings the main drawback - the viewing display in the eyepiece is really small. It covers a similar field of view though, you just have to look more carefully. We were really surprised to see that the detection abilities of the Axion were on par with the bigger (and far more expensive models) - but the guys told me that this was also a surprise to them. When they previously compared the Thermtec with the Axion, the Thermtec was winning clearly - for some reason, the Axion does much worse in humid and foggy conditions. But on a clear cold night, the difference was very small.
After exploring the detection capabilities using some distant Roe Deer and Hares, we noticed that we were basically surrounded by small rodents - which turned to be mostly Harvest mice, a lifer for both our friends and a confirmation of our nick name "Harvest-mouse-finder" for the IR camera.
 
Are there any sub £1000 thermal spotters that are worth looking at, or is the quality just not there in that price range yet?
 
I think Honza bought the Thermtec CP325 for almost exactly 1000 GBP according to the exchange rate but to be fair it was probably a mistake by the seller, they listed it too cheap for a few days and he jumped on it:) But it's currently at like 1400 GBP in most places. The Axion is actually 1000 GBP now and it's fairly useable but I'd say that the extra 400 GBP is simply worth it. But the prices are steadily decreasing over time.
 

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