You are right and my description wasn’t really sufficient to describe what is going on, Thermal cameras measure the amount of infrared (IR) radiation being emitted by an object and operate typically in the mid to far IR spectrum (MIR and FIR). Digital cameras that have had their IR filter moved operate in the near IR (NIR) and by adding filters that prevent visible light from being transmitted they can become very selective (the camera used in the image only registers light with a wavelength longer than 830 nm, although not into mid or far IR). It is limited because it is only capable of measuring reflected light whereas thermal cameras amplify the signal from emitted radiation and ‘colour-code’ them according to waveband.
At 830 nm the sensor is detecting the amount of NIR reflected by a subject (hence light foliage from plants that reflect NIR, but absorb visible light) and something similar is happening in the image shown. The tissue around the veins is absorbing more NIR than the veins, and that is because deoxygenated haemoglobin reflects NIR more than the surrounding tissue (making the veins visible) whereas oxygenated haemoglobin absorbs it in a similar way to tissue (and most larger arteries are ‘deeper’ than veins) and so are not visible. It has even been proposed as a way to improve certain clinical practices, but has limitations as it only works well on those ethnicities with light skins.
Another interesting ‘artefact’ of NIR imaging is that polyester textiles (like many synthetic polymeric materials) often become semi-transparent in an image as they do not absorb much IR radiation and so you do need to be cautious when photographing people using a modified camera! It is also why such modified cameras are used to study ‘below the surface’ of certain artworks and other materials (our interest).