Night vision or thermal vision, is a question many hunters have, especially if you have not had access to look through either one.
I recommend that our customers, whenever possible, have both types of equipment, as they are complementary. Night vision equipment allows us to identify and assess perfectly, but lighting conditions, fog, or rain affect them. Meanwhile, thermal vision equipment gives us greater observation distance without being affected by light, fog, or rain. Vegetation does not affect them either; however, for the thermal unit to detect an animal's or person's thermal difference, there has to be a clear line of sight through the vegetation. The downside of thermal units is that we cannot accurately assess or identify what we are seeing on the screen.
Thermal vision and antler detection
Thermal vision and antlers, is another much-debated topic. We will see antlers through a thermal unit under certain circumstances, and not with definition unless we have it just a few meters away and the device has a good sensor and microbolometer. When can I make them out? When they are growing (that is how all the videos we know are recorded). When the animal has been lying in the sun and the antler has residual heat, or when we have a background that contrasts with the thermal differences, especially when we have earth or trees with very cold temperatures as the background.
In this video of the Lahoux Spotter Pro 35 device, you can see it clearly, and it is one of the best ones on the market right now.
With everything I have told you, it may seem like night vision makes no sense, but quite the opposite. Thermal devices handle magnification very poorly; nowadays the images pixelate a lot, distorting image quality, whereas depending on the night-vision intensifier tube, it will allow us to have 10-12x magnification or more and get perfect images.
The ideal would be to have equipment ready to cover all the possible scenarios we may encounter while hunting. Thermal vision equipment is very effective in stands at short range or in very dense cover. Night vision equipment is what will give us the best identification and accuracy at long range.
What you need to be very clear about is that before buying a device, talk to real specialists like us; you will save time and money. In the world of night vision, equipment has many variations, unlike thermal units, where each model has its own technical characteristics, and it is not unusual to find people who buy two night-vision devices that look identical on the outside but look different when viewed through them, and due to lack of knowledge they make the wrong purchase, thinking it is the same model as the friend's one that let us look through it.
With this article, we hope to have helped clarify your doubts and to help you choose the model and viewing mode that best suits you. If not, don't worry, contact us and we will help you