As I am watching paranormal investigations (current binge is Amy’s Crept on YT), when they use the thermal cameras to see temperature changes, I was thinking about if thermal cameras can be use to observations on iNaturalist, especially or identification uses. I want to see what the community thinks about using thermal cameras while iNatting.
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I didn’t know anything about it, but this is the first YouTube video I saw.
Jump to the 2-minute mark to see how this relatively cheap thermal camera works in a smartphone:
https://youtu.be/F8BLSTCrQWI?si=tAM8p3pBMBSHYdMT&t=113
It would definitely be usable for iNatting!
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This is at least as cool and far more practical than my call for more X-ray photography! 
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There are a few observations made with thermal cameras already. I don’t know much about IDing mammals, but this observation is quite high-quality. I would not be surprised if it is identifiable… https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/121023524
This is a fun topic. It would be interesting to see different perspectives of the organisms we observe more often. I’ve seen a few observations made with an electron microscope on here already. Those are also very cool. :D
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I use thermal cameras frequently! Identification based on the thermal image is usually tricky; I usually take a picture with the white light/torch to confirm the identification.
Such observations are valid evidence of an organism, as a thermal imager documents real-time observations similarly to a camera. Some observations/species are definitely identifiable from the thermal imagers’ pictures alone, and with ever-improving technology, these observations are becoming more frequent.
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I/we also use one from time to time (a Helion XQ50F Thermal imaging scope). I find them useful and can be a very good tool when working properly. Ours has very very poor firmware and software support, making it prone to bugs every time there’s an update (even Android updates). When it works it’s nice. Here are a few examples from the wild: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144162692
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144160952
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144160952
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144160951
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144160950
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144162696
and a couple of captive ones:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104537655
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104537658
Regards
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It is now RG at species!
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I use a thermal camera a lot with university groups (we run ecology field courses). It’s a great way to see hidden animals when we are out bat detecting. The quality is variable, and the camera (Pulsar Axion 2) only has digital zoom. Sometimes the movement of an animal is what helps with ID though. Here’s a gif I made of an otter. Until it came out of the water, we could only see its head glowing as it swam, so it wasn’t identifiable. Any still from the video really didn’t show it as an otter, so I had to make the gif (where I had to reduce framerate substantially to upload). Obviously not the best quality observation as it’s choppy, but still recognisably an otter. We wouldn’t shine a torch on it, but the students were very excited to see the thermal video (we streamed this to a tablet live as the otter swam past us). Here’s the observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/245222713
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Thermal Monocular for Android, InfiRay T2 Pro Thermal Camera Scope from your link above. Thanks. This looks great, but looking at the app for it, there seem to be issues with its functions.
Quick question: (InfiRay Outdoor app for Android) to utilize & save to phone (android) has a 2.6 rating on Google play (from 2021-present 2024). Stating it’s inundated with advertisements &/or freezes while failing to save data.
The app is needed to use the thermal camera. Even with the amazing thermal results, The app appears to be wonky & makes the product unuseable in real-time. You pay for the Thermal Camera so why have to scroll thru advertisements to use it & if you are unable to save this data to your phone, it doesn’t make any sense to spend the money on something that the app to use it is dysfunctional.
*Did anyone else purchase this (android use) & download the app from Google play & have these issues in 2024? Does it still have advertisements & glitches in saving data?
@charmurr, I’m not sure why you replied to me (an accident, maybe?), but thanks for the question.
I don’t own a thermal camera, but Valentin, Lucian-Marius, or Sophie might be able to share some insights with you . . . @vmoser @plmro @sophie_mowles
FWIW: Mike Lane is very well-known bird photographer. Looking for a thermal camera to locate birds, he borrowed and tested a “Pulsar Helican 2 XQ38F and an Infiray T3 which plugs into a mobile phone”. He says the (much more expensive) Pulsar was much better than the plug-in camera even though it had excellent reviews on YT. He was unable to locate animals with the cheaper version, whereas the more expensive ocular did indeed help him find potential subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DFYv9gt8kI
Edit: The cheaper camera he tested costs nearly twice as much as the camera reviewed in the first link in this thread.
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This is an interesting discussion that could be started in another thread:
“What iNatting gear is worth the cost?”
Meaning, which gear is expensive, but worth it, vs cheap gear that does a perfectly good job?
My “gear” is just my phone, so a thread like that wouldn’t apply to me, but feel free to start that thread if you’re interested!
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I don’t have this camera/app, but I have an Android phone. I normally go into the phone’s app settings and deny ad-infested apps the permission to access the internet (both mobile data and WiFi) so they can’t be fed into the app (but I do let the app access storage – or else it won’t be able to save anything to the phone). Simultaneously I run Blokada (to stop trackers and ads at all times).
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That could be a theme in the thread about “You know you’re seriously into iNat when…”
You know you’re seriously into iNat when you start considering expensive gear just for iNatting.
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I know I am pretty seriously into iNat. While I did save up for a better macro lens, I have my doubts when it comes to this kind of gear. So far I haven’t felt the need for a thermal camera to locate such relatively large animals as squirrels or dormice, and somehow I am not so sure that it would help me find a caterpillar in a dry stem or an overwintering hornet queen in the garage.
Should I become so very interested in that particular kind of detection, I’d probably save up a little longer for a proper stand-alone device, and skip the not-exactly-cheap-either 400-dollar tiny plug-in camera that needs an app on a compatible smartphone to be of any use.
That said, I am quite open to hear of success stories finding insects.
This got me curious, so I checked. It seems like this caterpillar WOULD have a higher temperature than the stem around it, due to its metabolic functions, but the difference would be minuscule. In fact, you would see larger temperature differences in other parts of the scene, due to various abiotic factors (shade, humidity, etc.). So any thermal camera sensitive enough to pick up the signal of the caterpillar, would be drowned out by random thermal noise.
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What about a… ToF-ograph?
Many new phones include a Time-of-Flight sensor lens to help create synthesized DOF effects. Essentially, short encoded IR pulses are emitted on the scene and clocked for how long it takes the pulse to return. Those times are them mapped into a very low-detail matrix for depth mapping. It’s unique in that it uses time, not photon reflection to calculate an image.
There’s a free app (ToF Viewer) available and it converts the data into either stills or videos. I prefer videos as there’s only one beep at the start. The files are so low res that you can start the camera before going in if noise is going to be a problem. The same resolution for either choice so it’s just easier doing video and reviewing for decent frame grabs later.
Did I mention that it works exactly the same in complete darkness?
Here’s a few samples I just took. My Samsung Note 10 has been dropped enough times that it has a small crack running through the bottom of this special lens, which I’ve mostly cropped out here. These are just from my home, I’ve never attempted to do any field observations yet.
Has anyone else? Could it work in some special cases?
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I wasn’t sure what @broacher was talking about, so I watched this video:
https://youtu.be/VrM5_EO-bK8?si=HsS8XWDJO5tev2NI
It’s less than 2 minutes at 1.75x.
It basically says the same thing that @broacher said, but with the rotating 3D examples, it makes sense to me now.
You CAN generate a “heatmap” type of image with ToF, but it actually shows distance, rather than temperature. Which is still pretty cool!
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The first time I tried it I walked a little in along a very familiar trail as it was totally dark. The video turned out very ‘X-filish’ and it was fun. As I said, the video resolution is so low that the sound track probably takes up more data space.
And it’s surprisingly easy to find your way even at low resolution as your brain fills in lots of details as you hold the phone in front of you as you are recording.
There are also some really weird reflectors (like many road signs) that totally blow out the ‘exposure’.
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