Comparing thermal cameras - is the FLIR worth £3k or am I being daft?

So I've been doing some amateur investigations around the Yorkshire moors for about two years now, mostly with standard cameras and a good torch. Budget's been tight but I've got a bit of cash saved up and I'm wondering if it's worth taking the plunge on a proper thermal imaging camera.

The FLIR E6xt is about £3,200 which is mental money for a hobby, but I've read some brilliant reports from people using them for night investigations. Alternatively there's the Seek Thermal which is about £200 and attaches to your mobile - obviously not as good but you don't need remortgage your flat.

Does anyone have actual hands-on experience with either of these? And more importantly - do thermal cameras actually pick up anything anomalous or are we all just looking at patterns and convincing ourselves we're seeing ghosts?

I've got the FLIR C3 (older model, cost me about £1,500 on eBay) and honestly? It's brilliant for general investigation work but it's not a ghost-detecting device, if that's what you're hoping for. You'll see temperature differentials - dodgy insulation in old buildings, heat from wildlife, residual warmth on the ground. That's actually useful for ruling things out.

The Seek one is alright for the price but the image quality is rough and it drains your mobile battery in about an hour. If you're serious about this, save up for at least a used mid-range FLIR. The cheap thermal stuff tends to create more questions than answers.

Here's my take: if you're spending three grand on equipment hoping to catch spectral evidence, you're doing it wrong. I use thermal imaging as part of a system - coupled with EMF readers, environmental monitors, audio recording. Thermal on its own? You'll just get frustrated and slightly warmer hands.

Seek Thermal user here. Bought mine for £179 last year. It's good enough for what I use it for (checking whether draughts in old buildings could explain temperature drops), but the resolution is genuinely terrible and people mistake digital noise for actual anomalies all the time. Loads of YouTube videos of people claiming they've found 'entities' that are literally just artifacts. Save your money and get the FLIR when you can properly justify it.

All this equipment and none of you have actually captured definitive evidence of anything paranormal. Meanwhile I've been investigating for fifteen years with nothing but a standard camera and a tape recorder. The best evidence comes from observation and documentation, not from throwing money at gear you don't understand.