Night vision goggles

[okie]

I ended up with a Photonis tube from Robert at JRH- the specs on my tube match some of the high dollar gen 3 tube specs. I honestly don’t know that I would spend more money based on what I see out of mine—not sure what I would see/get better for the increased cost.
I am not an operator by trade and had never used NODs before. To my inexperienced eyes these will work for me just fine.

Not much under most conditions. When you're under heavy tree cover on a cloudy night and it gets really noisy, that's where the super high end filmless tubes come into play. For what we're doing, not really important. You did well.

[Lowdown3]

Not much under most conditions. When you're under heavy tree cover on a cloudy night and it gets really noisy, that's where the super high end filmless tubes come into play. For what we're doing, not really important. You did well.

+1

At our last Midnight Rendezvous 3.0 NV training class in March, we saw an interesting thing happen. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night- it rained on us most of the night, constant cloud cover, no moon. This is down in the Georgia swamps at our range- no ambient light from houses, etc. for miles. MR 3.0 class focuses on fieldcraft and students spend a lot of time on jungle lanes searching for camoflaged targets day and night, as well as (DRY) team vs. team competitions, etc. Being as this is a fieldcraft class and not a square range class there isn't much shooting. Also we have students operate WITHOUT IR signature- no extra IR illumination, etc.

Devices at that class ranged from Photonis Echo WP PVS14s up to 37 SN Ultralight BNVDs and several other "high spec" tube units.

I realized near the end of the night I was running my gain higher than I ever do- and I usually keep my gain about 1/4 under most conditions. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night.

You know who did the best on finding the hidden camoflaged targets on the night jungle lanes? A team of guys that all were running Photonis Echo spec units.

Yep, the guys with $2800. devices beat the hell out of guys with $10K binos- handily I might add. LOL.

[mig1nc]

+1

At our last Midnight Rendezvous 3.0 NV training class in March, we saw an interesting thing happen. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night- it rained on us most of the night, constant cloud cover, no moon. This is down in the Georgia swamps at our range- no ambient light from houses, etc. for miles. MR 3.0 class focuses on fieldcraft and students spend a lot of time on jungle lanes searching for camoflaged targets day and night, as well as (DRY) team vs. team competitions, etc. Being as this is a fieldcraft class and not a square range class there isn't much shooting. Also we have students operate WITHOUT IR signature- no extra IR illumination, etc.

Devices at that class ranged from Photonis Echo WP PVS14s up to 37 SN Ultralight BNVDs and several other "high spec" tube units.

I realized near the end of the night I was running my gain higher than I ever do- and I usually keep my gain about 1/4 under most conditions. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night.

You know who did the best on finding the hidden camoflaged targets on the night jungle lanes? A team of guys that all were running Photonis Echo spec units.

Yep, the guys with $2800. devices beat the hell out of guys with $10K binos- handily I might add. LOL.

Was it pure skill, or was there something about the units that adapted better to the humid conditions?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lowdown3]

Was it pure skill, or was there something about the units that adapted better to the humid conditions?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My point was more along the lines of dispelling the marketing BS that "echos don't do well in low light" that isn't really true.

Thinking back- some of the teams (2 man teams on the lanes) did as well as these same guys did during the DAY phase (different hidden targets in different locations but during the daylight phase of training). So yeah skill probably had a little to do with it, but was probably pretty damn close to equal.

In general I've noticed that guys that hunt tend to do the best on the jungle lanes. That's been a trend I've noticed for over 20 years.

[okie]

+1

At our last Midnight Rendezvous 3.0 NV training class in March, we saw an interesting thing happen. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night- it rained on us most of the night, constant cloud cover, no moon. This is down in the Georgia swamps at our range- no ambient light from houses, etc. for miles. MR 3.0 class focuses on fieldcraft and students spend a lot of time on jungle lanes searching for camoflaged targets day and night, as well as (DRY) team vs. team competitions, etc. Being as this is a fieldcraft class and not a square range class there isn't much shooting. Also we have students operate WITHOUT IR signature- no extra IR illumination, etc.

Devices at that class ranged from Photonis Echo WP PVS14s up to 37 SN Ultralight BNVDs and several other "high spec" tube units.

I realized near the end of the night I was running my gain higher than I ever do- and I usually keep my gain about 1/4 under most conditions. The lighting conditions absolutely SUCKED that night.

You know who did the best on finding the hidden camoflaged targets on the night jungle lanes? A team of guys that all were running Photonis Echo spec units.

Yep, the guys with $2800. devices beat the hell out of guys with $10K binos- handily I might add. LOL.

Now THAT is surprising to me. I've never looked through an Echo. I always thought gen II was supposed to suck in low light.

[Lowdown3]

Only it's not Gen 2, that's the thing. Due to the way they are made, it's technically not correct to call them "Gen 3" but it's also not technically correct to call them "Gen 2"

Photonis muddies the water even further by calling the technology "4G" to wit some folks have thought that meant "4th Generation" WHICH IT DOES NOT.


We are seeing on average 68 LP and 30 and over SN on Echos. That's been the average for the last year. Those are 3rd gen performance numbers.

[okie]

Only it's not Gen 2, that's the thing. Due to the way they are made, it's technically not correct to call them "Gen 3" but it's also not technically correct to call them "Gen 2"

Photonis muddies the water even further by calling the technology "4G" to wit some folks have thought that meant "4th Generation" WHICH IT DOES NOT.


We are seeing on average 68 LP and 30 and over SN on Echos. That's been the average for the last year. Those are 3rd gen performance numbers.

If you put an echo side by side with an L3 filmless, will the echo beat the L3 in terms of being able to see in less light?

[Lowdown3]

If you put an echo side by side with an L3 filmless, will the echo beat the L3 in terms of being able to see in less light?

So I know YOU know this but for general consumption-

Every single NV tube is different. You could buy two tubes from the same manufacturer of the same spec the same day and they will not be identical. This is why you have (or should have) a factory data sheet on the tube for your NV. This is essentially like the pedigree on an expensive dog- it proves it's a real GSD and Rin Tin Tin was his great grandpa, etc. versus some scrub you found on the side of the road (like my dogs LOL).

So to get a TRUE comparison you would have to have two tubes that were extremely close to get an ACCURATE comparison.

In other words, comparing a tube with a signal to noise ratio of 30 and one with a signal to noise ratio of 37 isn't a real comparison- of course the higher spec tube is going to perform better.

In comparisons we have done with SIMILAR SPECIFICATION Elbit WHP third generation SLH grade tubes and Photonis Echo spec tubes- again where the numbers were VERY SIMILAR, there wasn't a huge difference between the two.

Is it worth the extra $800 to 1,500? That's up to the buyer.

Here is the couple of comparison pics I mentioned-both were taken at our range in the Georgia swamps. We don't do like others do and put up pics from suburbia where it's already extremely bright lighting conditions. Here's a clue- if you can see sidewalks and McMansions in the background of an NV pic- it's already an extremely bright environment and does NOT accurately show what the NV can do. Pics like that are just artificially making the NV look good.

Want a true representation of what NV will do? Take it to the middle of the woods, the swamps, etc. 20 miles from the nearest small town, 2 miles from the nearest street light, etc.

On the pics- the pic of the Photonis Echo came out very blue, not sure why it does NOT look like that in real life, but again it is NOT that blue in real life.

First the Elbit WHP-

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFCYDSAJibQ/

A few yards more away, a pic through the Photonis Echo spec WP- again NOT as blue as this in real life-

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFCYrkNpWZd/

[ToeheadAR]

This has become an interesting read. That does seem more blue than other pics I have seen but I have never seen white phosphor or photonos with my own eyes.

[Lowdown3]

This has become an interesting read. That does seem more blue than other pics I have seen but I have never seen white phosphor or photonos with my own eyes.

What's odd is that about 80% of the other white phos pics on my IG were also taken with this same Echo and that was the only dang one that came out like that.

If it ever slows down a bit I'm try to get some more comparison pics online.