Sightmark Thermal

[65GbySeven]

Anybody put their hands on this yet?

https://sightmark.com/products/wraiththermal

[lazyengineer]

On the low-cost spectrum: while there is basis for ATN's poor reputation; my experience with Sightmark (other products) has traditionally been pretty good. I'd be willing to suggest giving it a second look - personally. But have no experience with their Thermal systems myself, and look forward to what others have to say.

I personally consider the Bering optics line of thermals quite a good bang for your buck, and am happy to have gone that route - but my data is also a few years old, so no doubt others have improved too.

To my eye, the price is comparable to a Hogster. The 1028 resolution is a little basic. Note the base magnification is the only number that matters, with numbers above that simply being digital zoom, and pixilation - not native actual zoom ability. The weight looks pretty good. Let us know how it goes!

[Gringoloco]

[65GbySeven]

Thanks for the early feedback. Please keep us updated!

[TomSawyerNW]

Thanks for the early feedback. Please keep us updated!

I'm also in the market for a night scope, and have just started looking around. Looking forward to your follow-up on this one.

[Double Naught Spy]

I have not used their thermal, only their digital NV. Online vids I have seen look pretty good. The price for the unit is very competitive. If I was new to thermal right now, it would be a option I would be considering.

Chances are, you will use one or two palettes for about 98% of what you do, or more. Most people find the other palettes interesting, but of little value in the field unless your goal is to experience the visual effect of hunting while on LSD.

Where I am going with this is that regardless of the brand, other than 2 or 3 color palettes, the rest really don't add any value to the scope (regardless of the manufacturer, today). Fortunately, they don't make the scope less useful except in giving you bizarre options.

I spoke with a gent at Armasight years ago while my scope was being upgraded and I asked about what the other palettes were good for. He said one or two are helpful in heavy rain and I have heard that is true, sometimes. He said that for the most part, they offer the palettes because it doesn't cost them anything to do so and since ATN (the big competition 10 years ago) was doing it, they were going to do it as well because their testers thought something was missing without them. There is some consumerism for you, missing what you won't use. If you watch videos on YouTube, when people use thermal that can produce different color palettes, about 95% of the time you seeing them being used is just a demonstration that they exist. I don't ever see anyone regularly using the bizarre palettes. Sure, maybe they do a hunt or two where the coyote or hog they are shooting looks like it is from an alien world, but then they go back to white hot or black hot. White hot, black hot, and sepia seem to be the most common used and not a lot of folks use sepia. Some people use red or alert mode that shows the hottest spots in the image as red and the red as white hot so your animal may look weirdly bicolor, but eventually just use white hog instead because a solid field is easier to target then one where the color pattern changes with perspective.

On the low-cost spectrum: while there is basis for ATN's poor reputation; my experience with Sightmark (other products) has traditionally been pretty good.

The huge difference between Sightmark and ATN is that Sightmark has a better customer reputation and known for better customer service than ATN. ATN can make a good product, but far too often they don't and then you have to deal with CS and their CS ranges from helpful to horrible with a lot being at the horrible end of the scale. My two CS experiences with them were poor as well. Every year or two, I will see posts saying how ATN has turned around their CS department, which is great on the face of it until you look at the history and if people are saying this over time, then you realize that things really aren't improving. That customer just happened to be one of the lucky ones. Sightmark makes a decent product, but has had some customer complaints about products (as all companies do) but none of the folks making such complaints (that I have seen post online) have noted that Sightmark didn't take care of them. They were just upset that their product went down for a brief period and that service isn't overnight (nobody's is). All electronics will need service sooner or later. If it is during the warranty period, you want a company with a good reputation for taking care of their customers and Sightmark is one of those companies. Sightmark's policies follow those of Pulsar (the best CS rep in the industry) for the most part and the company implementing those is the importer of Pulsar and the owner of Sightmark, Selmark, in Mansfield, Texas.

As for the 1028 resolution being a little basic, that is the resolution of the display screen only, not of the thermal sensor which is 384x288. So you will see a 1028 version of a 384 resolution image, sort of like watching old westerns on a high def TV. You definitely don't want the display to be less resolution than the sensor because that would detract from the image, but higher resolution the image will still pixelate the same under zoom depending on the image smoothing firmware which will make the image look less pixelated. There, the extra resolution of the display can help, but it isn't actually the resolution of the sensor.

It is also helpful for zeroing purposes. The greater the resolution of the display screen, the smaller the increments the crosshairs can be moved and a better refined zero that can be attained. Many people don't realize this, but the crosshairs are just electronic/digital constructs and only exist on the display screen. Of course, this helps with there being no parallax issues and no need for parallax adjustment.

[TomSawyerNW]

Thank you for your in-depth information on this, DNS! This is very helpful!