Thread: Thermalling deer

1justin, Despite your assertions that a thermal imager is looking at heat and not light, I think you will find that it is in fact detecting infra red LIGHT of differing wavelengths emitted by objects at different temperatures.

Infra red may not be in a humans' visible spectrum, but that doesn't change the fact that it light.

Some people believe that deer can see into the ultra violet range, also outside the human visible spectrum. Perhaps you think the deer are cheating because they can see something we can't.

In my experience, the thermal imager is just a tool, like my binoculars, that enhance my vision when lighting is poor. With the little bit I have used it, I doubt I could fire a shot at dawn or dusk after having been looking through the TI as it is bright enough to spoil my night vision.

i dont care if you get a helicopter with an m60 out the side and fly round gunning them down i sure people know what im getting at when i say cheating, and yes i bet back in the day when scopes wernt common some people called people that used them ...soft..cheats...bad shots more making a joke than anything

what im getting at is your not looking at the light your eyes pick up, you may not even be looking at the correct thermal image if your equipment is faulty or a software update is bad your looking at a computer genrated image from the information and there is limatations and mistakes can be made,

the more you look through one the more you get used to how heat is seen and so the more time in use the safe the user will be

if i look at you from 10 meters away i can see you as clear as day no mistaking you but it is not the same as looking at someone in the light you dont have the detail or the detail of the background,as you are not looking at light you are looking at heat and things can have very similer heats so a point could be if a person is leaning againt a tree and there not moving and they have a jacket on with a hood up faceing away from you there 500m away its just past night fall so the sky is bitter cold and the tree is still warm you probly wont see them, but in normal light you would have every opertunity to see them and they could be in the background of your shot where as you just think there a tree cause your not looking at light your looking at heat and basicaly anything that is the same heat as your background is invisable to you witch is one place mistakes can be made

im not saying there is a high risk for mistakes with them im just saying there is a risk

and to counter the point as it is complety diffrent vision source it could increase safety at times if you where to use it to spot as well and you may see things its hard to see in normal light
that you may miss

theres a low risk when ur on private land you know you have good gear and you,ve watched the animal for a long time you know the background

all im trying to say its not just about identfying your target its about knowing the background as well witch there limits for thermal as you are not looking at LIGHT you are looking at heat

Originally Posted by 1justin

i dont care if you get a helicopter with an m60 out the side and fly round gunning them down i sure people know what im getting at when i say cheating, and yes i bet back in the day when scopes wernt common some people called people that used them ...soft..cheats...bad shots more making a joke than anything

what im getting at is your not looking at the light your eyes pick up, you may not even be looking at the correct thermal image if your equipment is faulty or a software update is bad your looking at a computer genrated image from the information and there is limatations and mistakes can be made,

the more you look through one the more you get used to how heat is seen and so the more time in use the safe the user will be

if i look at you from 10 meters away i can see you as clear as day no mistaking you but it is not the same as looking at someone in the light you dont have the detail or the detail of the background,as you are not looking at light you are looking at heat and things can have very similer heats so a point could be if a person is leaning againt a tree and there not moving and they have a jacket on with a hood up faceing away from you there 500m away its just past night fall so the sky is bitter cold and the tree is still warm you probly wont see them, but in normal light you would have every opertunity to see them and they could be in the background of your shot where as you just think there a tree cause your not looking at light your looking at heat and basicaly anything that is the same heat as your background is invisable to you witch is one place mistakes can be made

im not saying there is a high risk for mistakes with them im just saying there is a risk

and to counter the point as it is complety diffrent vision source it could increase safety at times if you where to use it to spot as well and you may see things its hard to see in normal light
that you may miss

theres a low risk when ur on private land you know you have good gear and you,ve watched the animal for a long time you know the background

all im trying to say its not just about identfying your target its about knowing the background as well witch there limits for thermal as you are not looking at LIGHT you are looking at heat

Have you used any late model thermal gear?

Originally Posted by 1justin

i dont care if you get a helicopter with an m60 out the side and fly round gunning them down i sure people know what im getting at when i say cheating, and yes i bet back in the day when scopes wernt common some people called people that used them ...soft..cheats...bad shots more making a joke than anything

what im getting at is your not looking at the light your eyes pick up, you may not even be looking at the correct thermal image if your equipment is faulty or a software update is bad your looking at a computer genrated image from the information and there is limatations and mistakes can be made,

the more you look through one the more you get used to how heat is seen and so the more time in use the safe the user will be

if i look at you from 10 meters away i can see you as clear as day no mistaking you but it is not the same as looking at someone in the light you dont have the detail or the detail of the background,as you are not looking at light you are looking at heat and things can have very similer heats so a point could be if a person is leaning againt a tree and there not moving and they have a jacket on with a hood up faceing away from you there 500m away its just past night fall so the sky is bitter cold and the tree is still warm you probly wont see them, but in normal light you would have every opertunity to see them and they could be in the background of your shot where as you just think there a tree cause your not looking at light your looking at heat and basicaly anything that is the same heat as your background is invisable to you witch is one place mistakes can be made

im not saying there is a high risk for mistakes with them im just saying there is a risk

and to counter the point as it is complety diffrent vision source it could increase safety at times if you where to use it to spot as well and you may see things its hard to see in normal light
that you may miss

theres a low risk when ur on private land you know you have good gear and you,ve watched the animal for a long time you know the background

all im trying to say its not just about identfying your target its about knowing the background as well witch there limits for thermal as you are not looking at LIGHT you are looking at heat

You raise some valid points regarding safety etc too. And wether a shooter chooses to use thermal or not, we are all still 100% responsible to make sure that we identify our targets and checking our firing zone. If there is any doubt, do NOT take the shot. If an operator is using thermal gear they need to know its pro's and its con's, and as you mention it may not pick up everything. But it will pick up some things normal sight will miss so using both cannot make it worse.

A thermal has the potential to show you where a hunter is that you would have otherwise missed. You may not see them with a naked eye or a scope but you may see them with the thermal. Then once you know "something" is there, you can set about identifying it beyond all doubt by any and all means you can.

That's my personal opinion and then there's NZDA opinion.

I'm all for having rules etc, especially like you say when entering heads and the like.

But I just find it funny calling it 'fair'. If you want to get all definition on it;

adverb
1.
without cheating or trying to achieve unjust advantage.
"no one could say he played fair"

Personally I find it hard to legitimately say I don't have an unjust advantage over a deer when I'm rocking round with my 7mmRm and a 3-15 power scope, rangefinder and ballistic chart worked out by some pretty flash Harry mathematics.

Just my opinion though.

What's fair is humans being at the top of the evolutionary ladder, and hacking things like big brains, opposable thumbs, tools and technology at our disposal.

I'm happy to use whatever tools and tech I can get my hands on for hunting.

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk

Deer definitely cheat. They can smell me looong before I've even seen em. Damned x-ray noses or something.

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"Infra red may not be in a humans' visible spectrum, but that doesn't change the fact that it light"

yep

"eye sight" diffrence im talking about sun shines light down hits objects bounces off it and then hits our eye and we can see everything that light bounces off of and where there is no light we see "black"

infared is the imiting of infared waves or "heat waves" from a object that is then decoded by a computer program to give an image in ur view finder , we are not use to this we are use to seeing everything infront of us as we have our hole life so when you looking at a montain face and you see nothing on it in a thermal you think theres nothing there as is in your nature, but if there was any number of things there but they where the same tempreture as the montain face they are invisable to you witch is not in ur nature to assume, just feel like its a spot you could get i trouble in

looked at some you tube fotage of the pulsar q50??? shows hole tree lines just being black blobs soo unless your running alot higher resolution than 640x i dont think theres enough definition there yet

im not saying there not great tools i just think making shots through them is slightly breaking the identify your target rule and on private land where you know the lay of the land and there should be no one there that compensates for this but on public land where people could be anywhere it is a danger but there illegal anyway so what does it matter


speaking of deer cheating, do any of you use those HEC's suits noticed anything diffrent?

Originally Posted by 1justin

"Infra red may not be in a humans' visible spectrum, but that doesn't change the fact that it light"

yep

"eye sight" diffrence im talking about sun shines light down hits objects bounces off it and then hits our eye and we can see everything that light bounces off of and where there is no light we see "black"

infared is the imiting of infared waves or "heat waves" from a object that is then decoded by a computer program to give an image in ur view finder , we are not use to this we are use to seeing everything infront of us as we have our hole life so when you looking at a montain face and you see nothing on it in a thermal you think theres nothing there as is in your nature, but if there was any number of things there but they where the same tempreture as the montain face they are invisable to you witch is not in ur nature to assume, just feel like its a spot you could get i trouble in

looked at some you tube fotage of the pulsar q50??? shows hole tree lines just being black blobs soo unless your running alot higher resolution than 640x i dont think theres enough definition there yet

im not saying there not great tools i just think making shots through them is slightly breaking the identify your target rule and on private land where you know the lay of the land and there should be no one there that compensates for this but on public land where people could be anywhere it is a danger but there illegal anyway so what does it matter


speaking of deer cheating, do any of you use those HEC's suits noticed anything diffrent?

You look at a youtube vid, and you know everything there is to know about thermal. Unlike you, I happen to own one, a rather good one, and I disagree with you. The internet has made everyone an expert.

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

You look at a youtube vid, and you know everything there is to know about thermal. Unlike you, I happen to own one, a rather good one, and I disagree with you. The internet has made everyone an expert.

But But I've just gotten me popcorn

1justin, you seem to be of the impression that you eyes cannot lie to you but an electronically generated image can. Unfortunately you are far from correct. Perhaps you should do some reading on how your brain interprets the images detected by your eyes.

It is very common for your brain to "fill in" parts of the picture with what it expects to see based on past experience, so what you think you are seeing is not necessarily what is there. I work in an industry where this phenomenon has unfortunately killed a lot of people over the years.

You cannot shoot through the Pulsar XQ50 - it is a handheld monocular device, and not rifle mounted. At some stage you need to put it down, locate and identify your target and then shoot it with your rifle.

I doubt you could ever be 100% certain there is not someone in the bush behind the animal you are shooting at without walking over and taking a look, but this is not how the majority of hunters get shot. Predominantly they are shot by another member of their own party after having separated during a hunt. For this reason my son and I NEVER separate, and we only carry one rifle between us.

Despite how topical it seems to be, I have never heard of anyone being shot by mis-identification through a thermal imager. The same cannot be said for mis-identification via your supposedly infallible eyesight.

Yes your right sauer humans do have a big problem with our brain inpereting images and seeing things ect but thats what we have and we have chosen to still let people shoot rifles on public land with these limatations,

Im just talkimg about thermal and making refrences to human sight to ilastrate times when it could be dangrous not trying to say that human sight is perfect and safe far from it as you point out

257 weatherby

You obvoaly didnt read all the posts...
Nor did you state what gear you have and if it is better than the q50

I have a flir 320x240

Then someone refrenced there pulsar q50 to say its a very clear image so i looked on you tube to see its still not nearly at a level of detail where i would feel safe that nothing can be hiding in the background nor does a thermal of any quilty solve the problem, things of the same tempreture in the background can still hide in plain sight but congradulations on taking an uninformed dig and makeing a comment that did not add any point to the conversation

Originally Posted by 1justin

Then someone refrenced there pulsar q50 to say its a very clear image so i looked on you tube to see its still not nearly at a level of detail where i would feel safe that nothing can be hiding in the background nor does a thermal of any quilty solve the problem, things of the same tempreture in the background can still hide in plain sight but congradulations on taking an uninformed dig and makeing a comment that did not add any point to the conversation

I have a pulsar HD-38.

It has sufficient levels of detail that I can identify deer at a 600 yards. It also has sufficient levels of detail that I can distinguish deer from sheep at 600 yards.

Due to the gradients of temperature, things which are further away than the object of interest, but at the same temperature as the object of interest, will appear dimmer in brightness.

I think thermal optics should be viewed as a companion to binoculars for animal location, but not as a standalone implement for animal location and identification.

To clarify for people, I do not have experience with any systems which mount directly to a firearm and act as a sighting system. Nor do I have any interest in these systems.

1justin

I do believe it was me that said I had a clear image of a hind walking back to the bush that was raising her head and looking around.

I must apologise for my petulance, I don't know what came over me to make such an uninformed comment and not add any point to the conversation.

After all, I have only taken the Pulsar XQ50 out hunting and used it to observe real animals under hunting conditions.

You on the other hand have obviously done extensive research, having watched a few low quality videos on YouTube. I must admit that as a result of your research you are much better placed to comment on the units' capabilities than I am, and I will therefore try to refrain from making any further pointless, uninformed comments.

You do seem to be somewhat missing the point though, that a thermal imager is only an aid to locate an animal, and does not play any part in the act of shooting. From time to time I locate animals with my binoculars, but I have never shot one with my binos.

[QUOTE=Daggers_187;524715]I have a pulsar HD-38.

Hey Daggers_187 I'm looking at getting one of those how do you find it in the bush?
Cheers S