2022-10-22
1600-2359
50F
10 MPH S
Goals: Side by side compare of multiple thermal clipons
Environment: Fairly cloudless night, no moon, steady breeze from the South. We were is mostly flat open cut or grazed pastures, cattle in most pastures, 30-40 head each group on average, about 10 acres each pasture on avg.
Our primary viewing position was atop a large steel post (tin covered) awning over a corral, it was about 2- ft up in the air, so it gave good viewing position over several pastures. Cattle visible from about 200-600 yards.
Equipment: Several tripods and rifles and day scopes, in particular, I had an ATACR 1-8x, cantakerous had a revic 4.5-27x (I think).
Thermal clipons included:
Theon: ELR, LR, MR
Steiner: C35
Apollo100
And we had a PVS-27
(also had pvs-14s, c5e, coti, n18)
First, I must apologize, zero of the 60-ish pics I took came out. This phone cam - kyocera has sucqued for almost 2 years now, just about time to "upgrade". Every other phone cam I've had worked fine-ish for thru lens pics, but the kyocera really struggles with the auto-focus.
This issue could've been exacerbated by the fact, that I was mostly using white hot tonight - I usually use black hot - but the view thru the lens with the mk01eb was SPECTACULAR - with factory settings - on the theons - much better than I've been getting at home - and totally UTC-x/xii like and I couldn't believe how good it was - so I tried to take the pics - I took a bunch - as usually that means I get a few that work but alas ... nada ... I post a few so you believe but I was disappointed with the pic results.
However, as disappointed as I was by the pic results, I was overwhelmingly pleased by the side by side viewing. In the conditions we had tonight and with the factory settings, the theon's were at least equivalent to the UTC-x/xii in clarity. The "3D" images were very "hi-def" with cattle noses, eyes, ears, legs, hoofs, tails, bone & muscles on the flanks all standing out with different shades of grey through the full distance and magnification ranges of the optics we were using. 200 to 600 yds on distance ... 1-8x on the MR and LR and 4.5-27x on the ELR.
Ok, here goes the crap
I think this one is the MR in front of the 1-8, on probably 1.5x on the day scope. The cattle are 400-500 ish.
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And I think this is the LR on the 108 and 8x on the scope, same cattle, same distaces, those structures are at 1k-ish in distance.
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And BTW, I was real careful with the focus on each clipon. Nucing a bunch, setting day scope magnification to max and bracketing the cattle with the focus ring, and continuing to reduce the size of the focus bracket until I had it right in the center of the bracket. Used that same slow, careful, process with every thermal clipon. No quick "ball park" focusing tonight ... and all the thermal clipons looked GREAT !!!
The C-35 was hanging in there with the theon's surprisingly well, up to about 8x and 300yds, beyond those constraints, it fuzzed up more and more and you pushed beyond those numbers. But for $2700-ish price it still looked danged good !
The Apollo100 was also real good ! The 3D image aspect was especially surprising and impressive. Out to 500yds, it was hanging in there as well.
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Summary: I think some reasons the images looked so good tonight includes the idea that the hummidity must have been extra low. Even with the wind, I saw zero graininess - and hence zero need to increase contrast.
With the factory settings, the brightness was WAY UP and normally I turn the brightness WAY DOWN on all thermals (to reduce eye fatigue).
And apparently the combination of conditions blended well with all the thermals we had out as well as our mk01ebs. The raw images were the best I've seen since selling both of my UTCs earlier this year.
So, one of my secret purposes for this side by side was to help me decide which two Theon's I want to keep. I purchased an MR and ELR so far, I turn sell either or both of them and get any combination of theons, two ELR, two MR, one LR, one ELR, etc, etc. IDK, I could get any two.
Based on what I saw tonight, I'd be happy with any of them. My new surroundings in SW MO are in the Mark Twain National Forest and most shots will be under 200yds, so the MR makes a lot of sense.
The only remaining question is "Can I hit 4" target consistenty, quickly out to 200yds after running 200yds up to 80%" If I can do that with the MR, I'll keep the MR.
I might still keep the ELR, since, my last 10yrs in KS was so focused on shooting at greater distances and my brain can't let go of that use case
I'll keep trying to get better pics - note there are some better ones several posts back in this thread that I took at my place about 2.5 weeks ago, so we have those ... and also some KSracer took about a week ago also up ^^ there.
More to come ...