I Used A Budget Thermal Camera To Find Sleeping Birds at Night! (And Other Hidden Creatures)

[00:00:00]Hello everybody. Today we have a cool product to test out. It is the Thermal Master DV2 and they have it listed on here as the first bird watching thermal camera, which I don't know if that's really true. There's a lot of wildlife thermals, but it is more of a quote unquote budget product. Now, we're still talking hundreds of dollars here, but a lot of the really high-end thermals are in the thousands. So, I'm excited to see how this works and what we're able to see. So, I recently did a video about where your backyard birds go at night.

[00:00:27]So, I thought it'd be fun to use this to try to see if we could find some around the yard sleeping. Uh, so that I thought that would be interesting. And we're also going to test it against some other thermals. So, I have the Teslong thermal, which I did another review of, and it is kind of blobby. Like, you can see different heat signatures, but it's more of a blob. And I did try the Zeiss thermal, uh, which is in the thousands of dollar range, which was incredible.

[00:00:49]You could see the outlines and contours of different shapes and animals, and it was really incredible. So, I'm thinking maybe this will be somewhere in the middle. I don't know. I'm excited to find out. So, they sent this over for us to test. So, thanks to them for sending and we're going to we're going to see how it works. So, it says 1,00 meter and f0.8 3 core processor 1280 HD 360° touchscreen uh 512x 384 for resolution. And then it says AI bird watching four season adaptive, which I don't really know what that means. And I'm not sure what kind of AI it has in here. So, if it's AI identification, I feel like a lot of that doesn't work very well normally, but who knows? We're gonna just see what happens. So, let's get it unboxed here. Normally with a lot of this stuff, after you unbox it, you want to charge it. So, that's kind of why I'm doing this during the day. We'll give it some time to charge.

[00:01:40]Does come in a nice case. Another language on here. I'm assuming that's probably Chinese. Uh, but a nice carrying case.

[00:01:54]Okay. So, we have some packaging material in here.

[00:01:58]And then this is the camera itself. So, it's kind of like a handheld, almost like a DVD camcorder. Wow, the screen is massive on this thing. And then this looks like a charger, battery, and then some other stuff up here. It looks like some straps, charging cable, an Allen wrench for something. But I'm I'm kind of blown away by this screen. Look at how Look at how big this thing is. That is a nice huge screen.

[00:02:28]So, first thoughts are like this is bigger than I thought it would be. But I'm just impressed by this screen.

[00:02:38]Wow, that's cool.

[00:02:41]There's the front. So, I do believe it has laser pointers on here, too. So, this will be really interesting.

[00:02:48]And then I'm assuming the battery goes in on the bottom. USBC.

[00:02:53]Does this pop out?

[00:02:56]Assuming this is where the battery goes.

[00:02:58]I think it just unscrews.

[00:03:02]Yes. So, we'll charge our battery, put it in here, and then we'll see how this works. I'm really curious to uh test it out and see what kind of level of thermal we have here. So, I had the battery charging for a bit. I think it's good to go. I'm pretty excited to get our first looks with this and see what it looks like. So, basically, this was in a charger plugged in with a USBC cable. Now, I'm going to put it in the bottom here and then we should be good to go.

[00:03:30]So, I think I'm going to turn it on inside and we'll just kind of see. Okay, we got an on screen here. It's got like the cosmos on it. Wow.

[00:03:43]So, I'm going set it to English.

[00:03:48]Okay. Red button is the laser pointer, I think.

[00:03:53]Oh, this is a touch screen. Confirm. Oh, wow.

[00:04:01]On the display menu are different color mode options as well as different shooting modes. I kept mine on bird mode.

[00:04:14]There's also an option to select for more detail, normally used in cool, dry environments, or more contrast, often used in warmer environments. I primarily selected for more contrast. There's also a button that will put a crosshair on the area with the most heat, as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection, where you can see the thermal view on your phone. On the next menu section are photo and video modes. the gallery of media taken, a calibration button, and more settings. Some other thermals, such as the Teslong that I tested, only took photos and not videos. The Zeiss thermal I tested took both. Also, every thermal mentioned in this video shoots media and square format, so each photo or video shown here is cropped, so it fills the entire screen.

[00:05:05]So, I did a quick just kind of daylight test. I did find out there's a focus wheel on here. And then there's actually some different settings. And I did see a robin in the lawn, so I could find it with this. The smaller birds weren't as noticeable. So, I don't know if it's because it's day, it's so much warmer that it's hard to get a thermal signature, but there was a house finch in a tree that I saw, but I couldn't see it on the thermal. So, I saw it with my own eye, but not with this. But, there was a robin on the lawn that I saw with my own eye, and you could see it on the thermal. So, right now, it's working better for the bigger birds, at least out in the daylight. But, we'll try it again at night.

[00:05:40]So, I haven't seen any birds out here yet. Uh, but was able to find a rabbit.

[00:05:44]So, I actually saw it dart out and then I was able to use the thermal to find it in the vegetation over here and then turn the light on and see it as well.

[00:05:52]So, that is a win for the thermal. We were able to pick out that rabbit uh, you know, and pretty much darkness to be able to see it. So, that was cool.

[00:06:02]So, I've been doing more tests with small birds during the day. I was able to see them in this pine tree more so when they moved though. So, it picked up the heat signature on some of them. It was definitely smaller. There wasn't as much contrast as there would be with something like the Zeiss thermal. I feel like everything was super super clear, even the little birds. It is during the day, so everything's a little more hot.

[00:06:21]Um, but I do think it's going to be tough to find those really little birds, especially if they have a similar heat signature to what's in the surrounding area. And it I do feel like this one picks up the trunks of the trees a lot.

[00:06:31]So, you'll be trying to find a heat signature. It is kind of hard because the trunk will light up as well. So, let me see if I can find some larger birds, but it is struggling a little bit with the small birds. You can see them. It's just not you're not always going to get the uh big contrast that you would get from some of the higherend thermal stuff, but I have been able to see some birds with it. So, I was here looking at some chipmunks and ground squirrels, and the thermal picked those up really, really well. There was a bird in the tree that I got a little bit of a heat signature from, but then it came into the feeder and it wasn't as bright as I was thinking it might be. I think the feathers make it a little more difficult. So, it does have trouble with the smaller birds. Definitely during the day. I haven't been able to find any roosting at night yet either. And I do think it's going to work better for mammals and larger animals than it will for little birds, especially during the day. Maybe in the winter you'd get a little more contrast from the heat signature. Uh, but that's kind of what I've been finding so far. So, I'm actually getting a pretty good heat signature from the birds here at the feeder. Uh, specifically, there was a house finch that lit up really well. And sometimes I feel like the birds show more color on the thermal than others.

[00:07:35]So, the ones that were just slightly farther away were more gray with the setting I was on, and the house finch closer was more red. So, I think it's kind of probably like a relative heat signature, but it is picking them up pretty well. I think this showed them better than other tests have done. So, this is encouraging.

[00:07:54]I'm about to go out and do some more dedicated nighttime testing with the thermal. And I already hear some flying squirrels. We're going to go see if we can capture them on camera.

[00:08:31]Okay. Well, that actually worked really, really well. And the best part about it was they didn't get scared. I tried to show you with the regular camera and they kind of got freaked out. So, it was great to be able to watch them with the thermal, really, really clear heat signatures and then watch them chase each other around. So, we're going to check out the backyard now. I'm hoping we can find some birds, but maybe there'll be some other mammals out there, too, like raccoons or an apossum.

[00:08:50]So, let's see what we can find. So, I did find a rabbit outside and then I was actually able to see a little mouse, I believe, kind of moving through the brush. But, I'm really surprised I didn't see any birds roosting. I can't say for sure there were any that weren't blocked by leaves. But, I would think with all the ground I covered that we would be able to pick one out. Uh, but I think I'm going to find some birds that I know are there at night. But, it's been great for mammals. I just want to make sure you're actually able to see some of the birds at night or, you know, maybe we could find an owl or something.

[00:09:18]But just get some confirmation that this does work for what it's intended for, what it's marketed as, is finding birds.

[00:09:24]But for the mammals, it's been really, really fun.

[00:09:29]So, I feel like I've been getting really mixed results with finding birds. So, sometimes I'll see one, I'll put the thermal on it, you can't see it at all.

[00:09:37]Then one will fly in and it'll have a heat signature and then I can see it from then on out. So, I feel like if during the day I'm having trouble seeing them, that's probably why I'm not seeing them at night is because they're not moving. So, probably just looks like another little heat signature. During the day, I feel like if they're moving, you can make them out sometimes, but sometimes they have a stronger signature than others. So, it feels like it's really mixed for kind of using it for birding. As I said before, the mammal spotting has been great. It's just I feel like the birds, they're not showing up as well with the heat signature, and I feel like on a higherend thermal, there's better differentiation. So, I would say this is better than some of the other thermals I've tested in the same budget, but it's not as good as you would get from like a Zeiss or really expensive high-end thermal as far as contrast and really picking those differences apart. So, that's kind of what I'm gathering so far, but I'm going to keep testing.

[00:10:30]So, here's the deal. It's about 3:00 a.m. I'm at a gas station cuz I was getting gas earlier and there were a bunch of house sparrows making noise in these three trees by the gas station and then all of a sudden they went quiet as it was starting to get dark and that makes me feel like they're roosting in here. So I decided to come back. We're going to use the thermal, see if we can see the house sparrows. It might be too dense in there or it's possible they even moved. But I feel like this is a good situation of I think there's birds roosting in there. Let's see if we can do it. Let's see if we can see them. So, let's give it a try.

[00:11:25]Not going to lie, this was a total slam dunk. worked really well to see these house sparrows and it is pretty crazy that they're just roosting in these trees. So, this did work really well to see them and uh can confirm that this works to find birds at night.

[00:11:43]I just found a sleeping house sparrow in here. So, at the gas station the other day, I successfully found that group of them, but I had no idea these were here and this was able to pick it out. So, that's pretty amazing. Um, and it was just sleeping with its head tucked in.

[00:11:54]So, uh, we are doing some work out here with the thermal.

[00:12:01]This was a video I took during the day of a squirrel, a chipmunk, and a morning dove. You can see the mammals have the brightest signature, and I think this is because of the feathers on the bird that uh, it's not showing the heat as well.

[00:12:14]Here's a shot of a rabbit, and you can actually see pretty good differentiation between the different structures, and even which parts of the rabbit are hotter and cooler. Here we have a group of birds on a power line and you can tell that there's something there but there's not a ton of contrast and I think the further away you get the less of a heat signature you pick up generally and this clip also shows that.

[00:12:36]So you can see the trunk of that tree is very warm. But as I get closer you notice the cedar wax wing in the tree as well. So I think it picks up the heat signature a lot better when you're closer. Uh this was just some leaves that picked up a lot of heat. So, I kind of thought that there might be birds in there, but it turned out to just be leaves. So, you do sometimes get those false positives. And this was a bigger bird in the tree. I think it was a blue j. And so, you can kind of see the difference between the leaves and the bird shape. This was unfortunately a feral cat I saw at night. Uh, picked it up pretty well on the thermal as far as the shape of the animal. Here's a couple morning doves on a power line during the day. Again, it was picking them up pretty well. It's kind of switching between white in color or red. And here's another mode as well to see those morning doves.

[00:13:27]This was a chipmunk where I was flipping between the different color settings so you can kind of see what each one looks like here.

[00:13:43]This was a person riding on a bike trail at night. So, I just wanted to capture that uh in the moment. And then this was at night. There were some ducklings hanging out in this waterway. So, the birds on the lower part of the screen seemed to be the younger birds and then the older birds were up top. So, I was pretty glad that I was able to capture that cuz I checked for these birds a couple times and they weren't there and then I was able to finally see them. And I did see them with the thermal first so I didn't have to put a light on them or anything like that. So, it did work in that situation as well. Here are some images I captured with the Teslong thermal moninocular when I was able to test it. And overall, I feel like there's not a lot of clarity with the edges. Things appeared a lot more blobby, and there just wasn't as much distinction even in the background. So, one of the big things I noticed between the DV2 and the Teslong is the DV2 seemed to have more definition in the edges and just more differentiation and heat signatures. I felt like with the Teslong a lot of the times it was just like there's a lot of heat here and you didn't get a ton of differentiation or spectrum of different colors and you did get that with the DV2. I think part of that AI tech that they're using kind of helps with the differentiation and makes it a little more clear and then also the ability to take videos is a huge difference and in my opinion a big pro in the DV2 versus the Teslong.

[00:15:11]Now, when we get to the Zeiss DTI4, you can really see how much differentiation there is in the thermal signatures. And when I was testing this out, it basically felt like you were looking out during the day at night. That's how clear it was. And it really made a big difference with spotting small birds from far away. I think the Zeiss did a much better job of seeing tiny birds at a distance and really locking into that thermal signature where it kind of got lost in the DV2 and the Teslong. So, I think a big benefit of those more expensive thermals is that you generally have a better differentiation of heat signature from a distance and for smaller animals and more of a heat signature spectrum. So, seeing what particular parts of a bird or a mammal are hotter or colder, the DV2 did do a decent job with this, but I feel like you had to get closer to your subjects in order to get that where you could get it from further away with the Zeiss.

[00:16:05]Now, here's a comparative image of a rabbit from the Teslong, the DV2, and the Zeiss. I believe the Teslong, and the DV2 were at similar distances, but the Zeiss, that's about double the distance of the other ones. And you can still tell that it's a little more clear than either of the other two images. I wish I was able to test all of these with the same exact subject, but just with the nature of testing different products at different times, this was kind of the best I could do with a comparison shot.

[00:16:36]So, I've been testing the thermal for a while and I do have some thoughts on it.

[00:16:40]I also wanted to mention that you can hook it up to your phone so that you can see what you're seeing with the thermal on your phone, which is pretty cool. Uh, so I wanted to show you that option for sure. Uh, first of all, I want to talk about the things that I really like about this product. I think the massive screen on it is a big plus and it's a touchcreen and it feels almost more social because you have the big screen like you can tell your friends to come over and take a look and you can all look together. On a lot of the other thermals they're moninocular based so you basically have only one person looking through at a time. Now the screen can be an issue if you're using this during the day because you get a lot of glare off it. If you're using something like this you know you're blocking out a lot of the light. So, it is better to have a moninocular if you're in a high glare environment, but I do like the idea that this is, you know, big screen that you can look at.

[00:17:30]You can just tap the buttons and they make it really simple with the icons to change settings and everything like that. So, I really like that about it.

[00:17:37]You can take photo and video, which is great. And it does have this kind of uh AI integrated into it, which I believe makes the picture a little more clear.

[00:17:45]So, we'll talk about that when we compare it to other products in a second. But, uh the big screen is a big plus for me. It is nice that it has the laser on here. I didn't really use that uh for anything, but if you press the red button, you do get a laser pointer.

[00:17:57]And then uh was easy to charge. The battery comes out on the bottom, so I didn't have any issues with that. Um I thought that worked really well. And then the focus wheel on the front works well also. Overall, I felt like it really excelled for mammals. It was easy to get the heat signatures from them.

[00:18:14]The smaller birds I feel like it did struggle with. Now, it is tough because it is the summer, so everything's a little hotter, but there were some cases where I would be looking at a bird. I remember specifically there was one robin I saw on a telephone pole, and you could see the outline of the robin, but it kind of was the same color as the other things on the telephone pole. And I do think with thermal stuff, it is looking at relative temperature. So, if you have something else that's really hot, the birds aren't going to seem as warm. And they definitely didn't show up as easily as the mammals. So, you're not getting as much distinction and clarity for the smaller birds, especially if they're further away. And I believe that's because of the thermal sensor.

[00:18:51]So, I have some numbers here that I'm going to be looking at. The Thermal Master DV2, the one that we tested in this video, is 256 x 192, has about 49,000 pixels. Uh the Teslong, this one is 256 x 192, has about 49,000 pixels.

[00:19:09]And something like the Zeiss DTI4 is 640x 512 and has 327,680 pixels, but the DV2 has a super resolution mode. And so that makes it more of a 512x 384 according to them. So it's going to have a little more resolution because of that compared to some of these other thermals. But overall, something like the Zeiss is going to have more pixels and so it has more distinction of those little birds.

[00:19:38]So you're seeing more pixels per object.

[00:19:41]So you get a lot more clarity with something like that. This is more comparable to this. Now with this one, you can't take video. So that's a big plus for this one. And I I do like the pop-up screen as well. But I think we were getting more clarity with this one than we were for this one. And as you can tell, I was able to find birds at night. And that was a big thing for me was how does this actually work for birding? And I think it's a little more situational. you're not going to get all of the clarity that you might want all the time or that you would from a really expensive high-end thermal. And so, if you're going out and you want to be really tactical, you want to see every tiny little bird, I think it's worth investing in something that's more expensive. But if you want to test out thermal technology, have some fun, maybe look for some birds in your backyard, I think this is a great option for that.

[00:20:26]Like I said, I really love the big screen and it made it feel like really accessible to anyone. You'd be like, "Hey, let's go out and see what we can find in the backyard. Have everybody gather around and see what you can find." and it was able to do what I wanted it to do. We were able to see the sparrows in the tree, which was really awesome to go out and find the birds sleeping at night. So, we were able to use it in those birding situations, but I think the environment has to be a little more dialed in for it to work.

[00:20:49]Like, you have to be closer to those little birds to get them to show up. If they're further away, it's going to be harder to tell. But, I think for the price range, it's a pretty solid option.

[00:20:57]If you're looking for something to try out and dip your toes into the thermal technology. I think some of my favorite things we did was seeing the birds at night. Watching the flying squirrels was really cool. Uh seeing them jump around and finding the ones hidden in the tree.

[00:21:10]And then also seeing the other mammals like the rabbits. Where I feel like it really struggled was especially during the day when there were birds kind of in the branches. You know, it's not X-ray technology so it's not going to see through it. And it is tougher in the summer cuz everything's a more similar temperature. I think in the winter you'd probably get some better [clears throat] results with this, but it was hard to see those birds when I could see them with the naked eye. And then I would pull this up and then it was hard to see them because they really blended in with the background or they just appear really small or their heat signature wasn't very distinct. So that's where I feel like it struggled. And then one other thing that kind of bugged me as somebody who often sees things and then wants to get their tech going right away is the startup screen takes a long time.

[00:21:48]So I'm pressing the button here and it takes a while to kick on.

[00:21:55]Come on. And then uh this loadup screen takes a while. So you're kind of like I want to look at a bird and you're waiting for this to start up. So that was kind of frustrating. But then once it turns on it does pretty well. I don't feel like the zoom feature. You can zoom in four times. I didn't really find that that useful because you lose so much clarity then. So I was using it at 1x for most of the time. But overall it was really cool to test out and thanks to Thermal Master for sending. I'm definitely going to keep using it to find other animals in the yard.

[00:22:24]Hopefully, we can find some more birds at night and I'm really excited to try it during the winter. So, overall, I would recommend this if you're looking for a thermal in this price range.

[00:22:33]That's my review of it. Let me know what you thought in the comments below. If you would like to purchase this product, I'll put some links in the description.

[00:22:40]Let me know if you've tested any other thermals in the comments below. And thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time on Badgerland Birding.