So I am thinking about buying my first thermal mainly for hunting hogs and as a secondary use of finding wounded deer if on the rare occasion they don’t drop where they stand. I am thinking of going with the FLIR ThermoSight Pro PTS 536 4-16x50.
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Ok I gotta ask is "Fair" a typo or is that what Flir is know as in the Thermal / NV world?.......LOl Kind of like a Bayliner boat we used to call them Prayliners......LOL I don't want the Prayliner of Thermals I thought Flir was top notch.I had a Fair thermal scope.
Auto-correct evidently is a fkn democrat.Ok I gotta ask is "Fair" a typo or is that what Flir is know as in the Thermal / NV world?.......LOl Kind of like a Bayliner boat we used to call them Prayliners......LOL I don't want the Prayliner of Thermals I thought Flir was top notch.
Thermal is basically a whole new pair of eyes that see an entirely new class of 'light' energy: The blackbody radiation that all objects emit. Some objects emit more, thus they light up instantly in a thermal sight.
Interesting thing to note: On some of the survival forums in the past, several people mentioned covering one's self with reflective 'space blankets' that trap all body heat in order to avoid being detected by thermal imaging. One of the people on the board who owned a thermal sight did an experiment. He took a pic of his heat signature through the sight while wearing a mylar "invisibility cloak". Turns out, mylar not only traps the user's body heat inside, but also reflects all wavelengths of energy hitting it from the outside, so the surface emits far less blackbody radiation then let's say, surrounding rocks, trees, and vegetation. The photographer showed up as a man sized, clear dark smudge in the picture amongst the lighter gray of the surroundings. Thus, mylar is not a very efficient way of defeating thermal. If an enemy fighter with thermal equipment knows what's going on, he'd simply aim for dark silhouettes in his sight picture instead of the other way around.
By the way these things are expensive as all hell though, holy shit. Last time I checked a basic FLIR unit was $1100 minimum...
Thank you actually thank everybody that has responded this really helps me out....I can verify this story.
I’ve got about 15 years doing thermography on the high voltage electrical grid...my cameras are Flir units that range from 50k to 200k. Shiny new metal copper/aluminum make finding hot connections fun some times.
A reflective object, or in this case a Mylar blanket will emit very little heat...it will mostly reflect the heat radiated by surrounding objects. So if you’re standing in front of a shiny metal surface that’s 1000 degrees...you won’t see a 1000 degree object. You’ll likely see your 98 degree self holding your cam/scope looking back at it, along with the sky reflecting above/behind, along with anything else in the reflection. It’s basically like looking at a mirror with your naked eyes. I’ll break out one of my cams next week when I’m back in town and take a few photos showing this.
OP, sticks, trees, rocks, animals will all radiate heat differently, and at different rates. If you’re walking through the woods on a 100 degree evening, many things will appear similar in temperature but the sky behind will appear black/cold, and you’ll be able to distinguish between objects.
Scopes aren’t at the same level as the cameras I work with, but I can narrow down the level & span of my temperature range to make temps that are only a few degrees apart look drastically different or make my level/span so far apart that anything that doesn’t have a huge variance will look damn near the same. I’m assuming the more expensive and advanced thermal scopes allow you to set this level and span, but they may all be automatic where it adjusts to suit the objects you are primarily looking at.
But IR isn’t x-ray vision...you can’t see through objects (unless it’s one of the few materials that heat transfers through, such as germanium which IR units lenses are typically made from). So my point is, if your animal is down behind leaves, brush, trees, etc...you still won’t see it. You have to have a direct line of site still. But sometimes a leg peaking out from behind something is all you need to locate it.
Thanks for the tip with hydro-peroxide another one of those why have I never thought of that......LOLYour on the right path to finding your way into the night.
Trivia note: Dollar Tree sells bottles of hydro-peroxide (aka-h202) for one dollar. Place this in an empty spray bottle. Spray over fresh blood spots and it foams up. This is helpful in the fall when the foliage is ripe with color. This should be in every first aid kit.
For finding animals like that that just pick up one of the $400-700 offerings by FLIR or Leupold, you don't need to identify anything or see more than ~100m you just need to see hot spots. You're likely using white light already so it's a non-issue. Now if you think you're going to enjoy carrying around your weapon sight size thermal to accomplish the same task have fun with thatThanks for everyone's response maybe I can explain my needs/wants a little better, I got a pretty good idea that for thermal to work your surroundings have to have variance in temperatures to show the contrasting temperature differences in what you are trying to view through the scope I understand that if every thing was the exact same temperature it wouldn't show anything. What I meant by "will it work in total darkness" is say in the woods is there enough of a temperature difference between the trees, twigs, branches, ground, etc. A scenario I would like to propose to you guys that have experience is this. I hunt in SC where I hunt is mostly farmland with fields that are usually planted in either corn, cotton, peanuts or soybeans, surrounded by woods, sometimes I may hunt a field stand where the shots could range from 100yds to 1000+yds (i usually don't shoot past 300yds) or I may hunt the woods where the shot is usually 100yds or less. Last year my buddy shot one of the biggest bucks he has ever killed and unfortunately he made a bad shot on it and we couldn't find it the night he shot it we tracked the blood trail for what seemed like 1000yds or more in the woods it was total dark we had our flash lights, but they were running low, the mosquitoes were about kill us and my buddy's glasses broke. It just turned into a bad night we searched for hours and then called it. We came back the next day and found the buck within about 50yds of where we quit looking. All we keep thinking was "damn if we had a thermal scope maybe we could have found him that night". Sorry this has gotten long, I know a thermal monocular would maybe work for that scenario, but I figured why not get a thermal that can be used as a rifle scope also. I know most people lean toward getting NV first, but I was leaning towards thermal am I wrong in what I want to use it for?
Very well said.I can verify this story.
I’ve got about 15 years doing thermography on the high voltage electrical grid...my cameras are Flir units that range from 50k to 200k. Shiny new metal copper/aluminum make finding hot connections fun some times.
A reflective object, or in this case a Mylar blanket will emit very little heat...it will mostly reflect the heat radiated by surrounding objects. So if you’re standing in front of a shiny metal surface that’s 1000 degrees...you won’t see a 1000 degree object. You’ll likely see your 98 degree self holding your cam/scope looking back at it, along with the sky reflecting above/behind, along with anything else in the reflection. It’s basically like looking at a mirror with your naked eyes. I’ll break out one of my cams next week when I’m back in town and take a few photos showing this.
OP, sticks, trees, rocks, animals will all radiate heat differently, and at different rates. If you’re walking through the woods on a 100 degree evening, many things will appear similar in temperature but the sky behind will appear black/cold, and you’ll be able to distinguish between objects.
Scopes aren’t at the same level as the cameras I work with, but I can narrow down the level & span of my temperature range to make temps that are only a few degrees apart look drastically different or make my level/span so far apart that anything that doesn’t have a huge variance will look damn near the same. I’m assuming the more expensive and advanced thermal scopes allow you to set this level and span, but they may all be automatic where it adjusts to suit the objects you are primarily looking at.
But IR isn’t x-ray vision...you can’t see through objects (unless it’s one of the few materials that heat transfers through, such as germanium which IR units lenses are typically made from). So my point is, if your animal is down behind leaves, brush, trees, etc...you still won’t see it. You have to have a direct line of site still. But sometimes a leg peaking out from behind something is all you need to locate it.
yes designed for extreme heat..not so much for finding people or animals in woods. We have a Draeger 9000...(15000 dollar unit back when we bought it)...ive taken it out at night a couple times..resolution was horrible.its old I guess...you think you spotted something but its only a mouse on a tree ten feet in front of you. (there's a lot of mice in trees btw)!We use thermal imagers in the fire department a lot. Extremely tough, application specific and designed for extreme heat obviously. If you would be using it for searching, MSA, Draeger, and Scott saftey make some great ones. PD have even borrowed ours for finding scumbags hiding in the woods. Hope this helps. Oh and they definitely work in pitch black
Fair. Havent tested it myself other than for intended use. Suppose the PD guys that borrowed ours were in a parking lot looking into the treesyes designed for extreme heat..not so much for finding people or animals in woods. We have a Draeger 9000...(15000 dollar unit back when we bought it)...ive taken it out at night a couple times..resolution was horrible.its old I guess...you think you spotted something but its only a mouse on a tree ten feet in front of you. (there's a lot of mice in trees btw)!
I found using flashlights worked better then the Fire Dept thermal. It just confused us and cost us time. The backlight screws with your natural night vision....the downsides go on and on.
I would recommend the OP get his hands on a thermal and going out at night and trying it. I wanna bet he'd go the NV route instead if getting only one.
if you can get thermal up high to find something then its awesome. But from ground level...not so much. I tried to find an 'animal' I had shot that was destroying our precious wine grapes with ours...looked all over..spent 20 min scanning everywhere.. finally when I was standing exactly where the 'animal' had dropped I saw a blip of light on the thermal. Thirty feet into the trees in a small low spot was the animal. Flashlights would've been much quicker!Fair. Havent tested it myself other than for intended use. Suppose the PD guys that borrowed ours were in a parking lot looking into the trees
@SkyPup would froth at the mouth if he saw that lolYes.
But it works even better if it doesn't say FLIR on it.
@SkyPup would froth at the mouth if he saw that lol
FLIR was changed by spellcheck I bet !Ok I gotta ask is "Fair" a typo or is that what Flir is know as in the Thermal / NV world?.......LOl Kind of like a Bayliner boat we used to call them Prayliners......LOL I don't want the Prayliner of Thermals I thought Flir was top notch.
Try your thermal in the daytime -- like tankers.
Flip between white- and black-hot. You may be surprised -- it's not a night-only tool.