Night Vision hunting Thread

[NightStalker]

For Married people on a budget:

the cheapest way to get into NV hunting is Xgen Xgenpro 3x Digital Night Vision Viewer (under $100) on Amazon. Similar clones can be had for about the same price. Add a 3 watt IR flashlight (under $20). Final piece of gear is the IR 850nm 5mw Airsoft pointing lazer. ($100) Mount the lazer to your rifle. You will have rig a head mount for the scope out of an old hard hat with some wire and duct tape.

And there you have it: for under $250 you can bust coyotes in the dark at 40 yards all night long, and hogs to 80 yards.

[NightStalker]

Question for someone smarter than me. My 850 nm laser and my 850 nm flashlight both seem to 'bleed' a tiny amount of red light. My human eyes are supposed to not be able to see beyond 700 nm. So, can our eyes see further into the spectrum, or is my gear bleeding some light into the visible spectrum?

Never been a problem with pigs, but once or twice I thought coyotes 'saw' my flashlight.

[Duck_hunter11]

I agree entirely. I think also a lot of guys think that with a digital NV scope you can go out and find animals. And you can spot them but you need to be very close, in an open field with very short grass, or just be at the spot the hogs will be. If you're in thick brush or tall weeds the IR will reflect back at you and wash out the image some.
The photon works great for sitting in a blind watching a feeder or a small food plot. But if you're going to be covering lots of ground you need something good for spotting animals like gen 3 or even better, thermal.

That's where monoculars come in handy

[keatonskidmore]

That's where monoculars come in handy

Yup that's what I'm talking about. But a digital monocular won't be good for spotting in tall brush since the IR will reflect back a lot.
For me my thermal scope has a QD mount built in so I take it off and spot hogs from the county road. Then put it back on the gun and drive into the lease I spotted them on and start the stalk.

[texas bound]

I would love to get a thermal but just can't see paying that much right now. My digital mono works pretty well for my hunting situation but you are correct tall grass and brush give it problems

[keatonskidmore]

I would love to get a thermal but just can't see paying that much right now. My digital mono works pretty well for my hunting situation but you are correct tall grass and brush give it problems

I thought the same thing..then I used thermal lol.
Honestly thermal costs are rapidly declining with new technology. What was once 10k is now 5k

[texas bound]

I thought the same thing..then I used thermal lol.
Honestly thermal costs are rapidly declining with new technology. What was once 10k is now 5k

Yeah I'm waiting for em to come down some more before I buy one. Just got onto night vision hunting this year.

[miket]

Question for someone smarter than me. My 850 nm laser and my 850 nm flashlight both seem to 'bleed' a tiny amount of red light. My human eyes are supposed to not be able to see beyond 700 nm. So, can our eyes see further into the spectrum, or is my gear bleeding some light into the visible spectrum?

Never been a problem with pigs, but once or twice I thought coyotes 'saw' my flashlight.

My understanding is that not ALL of the light is IR. There is some "trash" ( for lack of a better word ) that is at a lower wavelength and thatis what we are seeing. All I have ever seen is a very dull red glow. So far I have never had animals even remotely seem to notice it. Even red is above the visible spectrum for pigs. I would be willing to be that when pigs see the light when using red, they are seeing the "trash" light that is lower than red.


What I mean by trash is that apparently not every bit of light emitted is of the advertised wavelength. Just like so many things, the light is not 100% pure with some light emitted at higher and lower wavelengths. There is a better word for it but Im drawing a blank at the moment

[miket]

Yup that's what I'm talking about. But a digital monocular won't be good for spotting in tall brush since the IR will reflect back a lot.
For me my thermal scope has a QD mount built in so I take it off and spot hogs from the county road. Then put it back on the gun and drive into the lease I spotted them on and start the stalk.

Is the IR reflecting back at you an issue with the photon? There are ways to prevent that issue. The cameras I have been using have BLC, HLC, auto iris and WDR to control that. With mine if you are viewing something at a distance then look at something close it momentarily is very bright but within a second or 2 the camera compensates and tones it back down to normal levels. This is why I just use a single mode illuminator. When testing with the 3 mode there was no benifit to the lower brightness settings, all it did was force me to bump it brighter to see farther. With the photon, can you see the camera adjusting to the varying light levels?

[keatonskidmore]

Is the IR reflecting back at you an issue with the photon? There are ways to prevent that issue. The cameras I have been using have BLC, HLC, auto iris and WDR to control that. With mine if you are viewing something at a distance then look at something close it momentarily is very bright but within a second or 2 the camera compensates and tones it back down to normal levels. This is why I just use a single mode illuminator. When testing with the 3 mode there was no benifit to the lower brightness settings, all it did was force me to bump it brighter to see farther. With the photon, can you see the camera adjusting to the varying light levels?

Yeah it adjusts to the brighter levels when you look at something up close. But that I'm saying is if you're in tall brush and the pig is further up there's no way around it. Like for example the wheat was just extremely tall until the weather hit. Like waist high. So we would stalk a hog up to 50 yards or so and I'd look at it through the photon and if I aimed a bit higher than the hog I could see him fine because I'd be casting the IR beam over the wheat just in front of me and just barely shining on him. But when I'd aim right on him or a little lower the IR would shine directly into the wheat just a few yards in front of me and my scope would adjust for it by dimming down and then my view of the hog would worsen.
Make since? Kinda hard to explain.

[miket]

Yeah it adjusts to the brighter levels when you look at something up close. But that I'm saying is if you're in tall brush and the pig is further up there's no way around it. Like for example the wheat was just extremely tall until the weather hit. Like waist high. So we would stalk a hog up to 50 yards or so and I'd look at it through the photon and if I aimed a bit higher than the hog I could see him fine because I'd be casting the IR beam over the wheat just in front of me and just barely shining on him. But when I'd aim right on him or a little lower the IR would shine directly into the wheat just a few yards in front of me and my scope would adjust for it by dimming down and then my view of the hog would worsen.
Make since? Kinda hard to explain.

Gotcha, it seems like the camera can only do so much about the super bright areas vs the dark areas.

[keatonskidmore]

Gotcha, it seems like the camera can only do so much about the super bright areas vs the dark areas.

Exactly. Like the lower half of the camera is being over exposed so it's adjusting to that when it needs to let the top half stay more open to light. I'm not a camera expert at all obviously lol.

[Texas Grown]

My advise to anyone that wants to start night hunting is to go find someone that nights hunts and go out hunting with them before you spend a lot of money on equipment to see if you like it or not. Not everyone is cut out to be out in the woods at night by themselves.

Or going out to feed in the dark with out anything other than a knife and a headlight in very remote places by boat, and then another mile and a half in by foot, by your self, twice a week . I've seen critters that were either dead or injured that didn't last more than 45 minutes before the carnivores found it. Even pigs got ate. No place for one to get injured where they can't walk for certain . If you do get a leg injury, you had better be able to crawl or get to a tree some how and pull your self up in it. Cause no one is gonna know your in there by your self unless you let someone know where you are before you go. I didn't have the second option at that time in my life. So I spent many an evening feeding by my self. Keeping as many as 7 holes up and down the river baited for pigs after dark. And did I mention I sleep in trees, many times till the sun comes up?
That is, unless I make a kill . Private property is a whole nother situation .

[Seacoal]

Alright guys I need a favor. Can someone measure their photon and tell me what the length of the tube where I can put the scope mount is please?

[35remington]

Night Vision hunting Thread

Alright guys I need a favor. Can someone measure their photon and tell me what the length of the tube where I can put the scope mount is please?

Info is in this thread. Try searching "length" or "measure."

Edit: did it from my phone. See Post #402, 406, and 407.