The Future of Gaming - HIKMICRO's RAPTOR Offers Unparalleled Experience

"The thermal image quality on the RAPTOR was fantastic. The best I have experienced from any unit to date," said Digby Taylor, the GunsOnPegs professional hunter. Together with him, let's check his wildlife observation experience.

Digby was taken the HIKMICRO RAPTOR thermal binoculars for his recent trip to Co. Wicklow in Ireland stalking Sika. With a huge variety of terrains and scenarios encountered it couldn't have been a better trip to put the RAPTOR through its paces.

I had been planning a trip to join a friend out in Ireland to hunt Sika deer for nearly a whole year. Over many conversations leading up to the trip, it became clear that the timing couldn't have been more perfect. The Sika rut was in full flow and judging by the previous week's activity we were going to have a good time of it. 

My friend (and guide) had told me of the difficulty he has had spotting the stags before they spotted him in the thick forests of the Wicklow Mountains. Sika are an incredibly shy animal, coming out only on the edge of dawn and dusk. We had planned to spend some time in high seats in the evenings and stalk the woodland during the daytime. 

I had had my eye on the HIKMICRO RAPTOR binoculars ever since I reviewed the FALCON monocular. In combination with thermal camera, digital day & night camera, and laser rangefinder, the ultimate innovative RAPTOR series binocular provides unprecedented observation capability in thermal or true living color,up close or from a distance, during day or night in adverse weather to break through your visual limitation. With an enviable sub 20mk NETD sensitivity, via a 640x512 12 micron sensor, the HIKMICRO Raptor RQ50L thermal binoculars image quality is right up there with the best spotter on the market. 

I was hoping with the addition of an all-in-one pair of binoculars we might be able to increase our effectiveness when stalking the woodland during late morning and early afternoon, and also cover more ground in a shorter period of time.

Thermal Moment

Just like the FALCON monocular I had used previously, the thermal quality on the RAPTOR was fantastic. The best I have experienced from any unit to date. You can see from this image I was able to easily identify sheep grazing the other side of the valley from us at 427m. In light rain! 

And at a more reasonable distance of 200m the quality was second to none. 

As ever, the thermal setting was invaluable for picking up an incredibly well-camouflaged herd of red stags on the hill which had already been 'glassed' with a pair of normal binoculars at ~750m. We didn't stalk these as they were not on the land we had permission to shoot over but it was amazing to see nonetheless.

Day & Night Camera

This image demonstrates how an integrated day and night camera can save a huge amount of time. I picked up a deer on the thermal in the long grass on a woodland ride but due to the sunshine on a cool morning hitting the rough ground, there was some interference. A quick switch over to the day mode and I could identify it was a Sika hind with a pricket without having to get my binocular out of my bag. In fact, so confident were we in the dual purpose of the RAPTOR, we left the normal binocular behind for our second outing. 

A Successful Stalk

Sadly I didn't get a chance to use the RAPTOR at night time, and we wouldn't have been stalking after dark anyway, however, I did set up the product at night and found that due to having to use both eyes, my natural eyesight struggled to adjust to the darkness. I'm not sure if I can think of a solution to this problem other than not using the RAPTOR binocular when you might need to see with your own eyes at night. Perhaps a monocular would be more useful when walking around in the dark than the binoculars. For all other scenarios though, I would highly recommend you give it a try.

Similar Thoughts from Paul Austin

Paul Austin, another professional hunter, stated that, “The dilemma of whether to carry two pieces of equipment or suffer the limitations of one is now over with the arrival of the HIKMICRO RAPTOR RQ50L thermal binoculars.” With a <20mK NETD sensor, HIKMICRO should dominate in terms of image quality and that’s finally the case with the Raptor, which has been calibrated perfectly and delivers an outstanding and well-balanced image on the excellent, large and high-resolution internal display. It works well as an alternative to traditional binocular. It can pick out and ID quarry over a kilometre away without any difficulty during the day. 

In short, this is a landmark product that delivers almost everything the public wants from a spotter in a single unit.

*Before purchasing any thermal or digital day & night vision device, please make sure you adhere to the local ledislation and only use it when it is allowed. Our ambassadors come from various countries and travel a lot, which allows them to test different devices. We do not encourage or support the illegal use of our devices in any events.