The reason I went with this over the Flir scout series is because I prefer the small metal flashlight construction and it has a replaceable battery. I bought it for police patrol work on the night shift so it will be in a case on my belt. I wish it had a loop for a lanyard and an adjustable screen brightness because other than the red mode, its too bright at night.

Walking down my street at night using red mode I could clearly make out everything in front of houses and hot car hoods about 50 yards away in total darkness just as if I was looking at it in daylight. But It dosent have any Optical zoom capabilities, so at more than 70 yards in Black Highlight mode, objects that give off heat are just a bright colored blob against a grey background, you can see they exist, but cannot determine what it is, or if its anything more than a hot rock. The digital zoom is useless, they could have used that button for something else, like screen mute. Overall, with thermal technology at the price point, I dont expect it to give me the performance of a $3500 professional unit, but its still usable for situational awareness.

It wasn't worth the price for me so I returned it. With that said it's not like I've found a better one for the price. These things are just very expensive and imo you don't get what you pay for.

cons:
-At 50 yards I could see a heat signature but couldn't tell if it was a racoon or cat.
-Screen lights up and if you're trying to stay dark/hidden this doesn't help
-expensive
-I started testing around sunset and it took a couple hours before it stopped picking up heat signatures from rocks and plants.

pros:
-portable
-At 20 yards I could tell it was a racoon and enjoyed following him around with this

Was not what I was looking for. To small of a picture and could not focus to my liking. Very well made through

I'll cut to the chase and tell you I like the LTO a lot. It's not perfect, but I wouldn't say that it is necessarily flawed, either. If you are thinking about purchasing one please read this review as I'll try to give you a realistic idea of what it can (and can't) do and what you can expect.

As a former police officer I have used handheld, vehicle- and aircraft-mounted thermal imaging equipment which all cost north of $15k. This little guy ain't that! But for what it is, it's very good. All thermal devices, save for the top-end stuff, generally have really crappy zoom capabilities. The LTO is no different. The zoom features isn't totally useless, but almost :). So don't get mad. It's not optical like on a nice SLR camera. Different technology at play here.

Let me start by telling you what this is NOT: This is not a put-it-to-your-eye monocular, but rather a little screen that you're holding a reasonable distance in front of your eye. It's also not something you'll mount on a gun. The crosshair function is a novelty. It's not magic- you aren't going to see everything like in Call of Duty or Zero Dark Thirty. It's also not for locating ringtails in dense trees 800 yards away. If you are expecting movie-quality resolution on an 85-degree night, save your $$ and do not buy this.

Ok Ok, great. So what IS it then? This is a solid little device with pretty amazing technology for the price-point. It works incredibly well at close ranges (40yds or less) and reasonably well at 100yards and less. Does it work beyond that? Yes, but only for large objects, or very small objects in clear and/or cold environments. The selectable color schemes are VERY useful. I personally like the "White Highlight" option best but your mileage will vary. I don't think the red or green is as helpful but the advantage there is that it doesn't put as much white light back in your face from the screen, so your face isn't as illuminated and your night vision is at least partially spared.

This is not "night vision"- it's detecting heat, and it works on the basis of CONTRASTING TEMPERATURES. On a hot night it won't work as well as on a cool or cold night. Example: The quality of the image on a 60-degree night is (in my opinion) about double the quality on an 80-degree night. It's not that you CAN'T use it on a warm night, but the utility goes down b/c there is a lower differential (delta) between the background and the objects you are interested in finding. If you live in an area with rocks you'll quickly learn they retain a lot of heat after the sun sets. You'll also start to snap to things that look out of place, and that's cool! Example 1: I noticed the top of a tree stump was red hot, which makes no sense. Got closer and it was a nesting bird. Example 2: I noticed a "rock" that hadn't been the in the past. Wasn't a rock, it was a rabbit. My experience is that as long as the ambient temp is 75-degrees or less, at about 65 yards and in I can immediately tell the difference between small game animals (foxes, skunks, raccoons, etc), so it's not like you just see red blobs and you have to figure it out. At longer distances and/or warmer environments it will be come less and less "accurate". Neat stuff. Anything that blocks heat will impede the use of the LTO, so again just know that going in.

So even with the limitations of this device, I would say it is pretty darn useful. So the final question has to do with value. With an MSRP of almost $1000 I would say there is absolutely no case for the LTO. In the $600 range...ehhh, that's tough. Because I personally think $600 is a lot of money. When you get down around $450 or so, it becomes a little easier to stomach. For me, exploring and hunting at night, it's a game-changer. In a very short amount of time I've had dozens of encounters/sightings that I totally--and I mean TOTALLY--would have missed before.

Finally, even if you DON'T buy this, I hope you can appreciate what Leupold (and other companies like FLIR) are doing here. To have handheld thermal technology the size of a flashlight, for less than a nice scope, is pretty amazing. And in 5 years it will be even MORE amazing. They are blazing a trail that us consumers will benefit from later even more than we are now, and for that I tip my hat to their engineers and designers.

Not too hapoy with this product. If there is something hot in the picture it is fairly clear. If you look around in the woods without heat, it shows heat all over the place. If you let your finger in the picture it kinda resolves it. Overall not satisfied.