SiOnyx Day/Night Camera & Hogs

Pig_Popper and I joined our buddy Darrell up in north Texas for a night out looking for hogs. We had a lot of fun taking turns doing color, low light video while the other guys shot. The SiOnyx Aurora is a nifty little camera that can be helmet or weapon mounted as well as run handheld as we did here. Hope to put it on a rifle as a shot camera in the near future. Anyhow, I am covering part of the hunt and Pig_Popper is covering the other part.

Our first group of hogs was actually on land next to another friend's (Ray) place and we called an got him out of bed to come hunt with us. The wind wasn't too bad but the moon was 1 day off from being full and was fairly bright. Given previous experiences Darrell and I had had the night before on separate hunts, we opted not to get in too close with the hogs. Pig_Popper is shooting .358 Yeti with an old school Pulsar N550 Digisight digital night vision scope. Ray is using Darrell's 6.8 SPC with a Pulsar Trail XP38 LRF (laser range finder) thermal scope. I am shooting a 6.5 Grendel with a Trijicon IR Hunter thermal scope.

From analyzing video, I believe we shot a total of 4 hogs and recovered 2. The two recovered hogs were exceptionally well ventilated.

cool vid...

Man I sure wish my hog would have dropped like yours did and I also wish I had a thermal on top instead of the Old School Digi - I gotta look into a heavy duty QD mount for the APEX but it’s also a hassle to drag the recorder from gun to gun.

All my issues aside: I thought the Sionyx looked great on the full moon night. I thought my 358 Yeti did okay in the cycling department (it’s a single stack mag). And we recovered two but you tagged a few others too...

Thanks for the invite to join you guys!

Here is the 2nd hunt of the night...

^^^^ That’s some fine hunting and video production

DNS, That video looks really good. What are your thoughts on using the SiOnynx Camera as a monocular to spot hogs?

Joe,
Still working with it and need to use it in less ideal circumstances. Keeping in mind that it is a 1x optic (native magnification), it is pretty good when you have some light, but we needs to be see is how it does when there is less moon or no moon. Based on the videos elsewhere on YouTube (you can search on "sionyx" and see some other evaluations), there definitely comes a point when the light level falls below its capability and it is not useful. Gen III will still see below that level, but above that level and the SiOnyx tends to have a better image, and can be in color. The question for me is just what that light level is and how much of the month is it apt to occur. Obviously, inside of forests and such, the problem of sufficient ambient lighting will be worse.

It can be supplemented with an IR illuminator, however.

Thanks for the feedback sir

The SiOnyx camera is intruiging. Doubt that I'll spring for one at this time, but it's nice to know what's available. Thanks for the video and description.
Nice work on the hogs as well!

pretty cool video!! This isn't an application that most would need or want (probably due to price is my guess) but for hardcore videographers and folks with some cash to burn, this SiOnyx looks realty neat!

As usual, good video and good hunting!!

I was hoping a hog would show - in any case here is some night footage for you hog hunters considering this camera - the above footage in this thread looks great (FULL MOON) and here is the other side of the coin (NO MOON)

That is a very well done demo of the capabilities...

No hogs this time. However, here is video I took with the SiOnyx last night. It was a 57.7% moon, a bit over half. This seems to be close to the low end of having a usable image from the SiOnyx Aurora without supplemental illumination. At one point, the camera scans by a flaring gas well that is more than a mile away. It looks really impressive on the SiOnyx, but to the naked eye, it was just a flickering light behind the trees, not much different than the various tower lights in the background.