Affordable Night Vision Wanted

Beaniedude

Hey all,

I was wondering is there anywhere that sells affordable (max. around €200) night vision. Looking for the best quality I can find for that price.

Thanks.

johngalway

What are your expectations?

Beaniedude

johngalway wrote: »

What are your expectations?

Well i dont know
I dont know much about night vision, I know of gen 1, 2 and 3. I would want the best i could get for about €200. Any suggestions?

johngalway

Yes, save more

Not trying to be smart, but nightvision isn't cheap.

You need to think about what you want to do with the unit. How far you expect to see clearly.

Aldi or Lidl sell a unit from time to time, but to see anything more than thirty or forty yards you'll need an additional IR source. I haven't looked through one but I'd be suspect over their quality.

Donny5

Beaniedude wrote: »

Well i dont know
I dont know much about night vision, I know of gen 1, 2 and 3. I would want the best i could get for about €200. Any suggestions?

I went looking for night vision a few years back, and did a good bit of research. At the time, the devices were cheaper than they are now (I'm not sure why this is), and I bought and borrowed a few to try out.

Here's what I learnt, more or less:

You won't get good night vision for €200. It's just not that cheap. I don't know why prices aren't falling, or why there aren't more cheap digital night vision devices (which are much cheaper to produce).

The best you can get in that price range is Gen 1, which are old and require significant ambient light or an IR lamp. Because most IR lamps use unfiltered IR LEDs, they produce a much better image but also glow in the visible spectrum, with a cherry red dot. That's probably not a problem unless you want to be covert somewhere, which is the only real reason to use night vision over a torch. The glow isn't too bad, you wouldn't scare wildlife or be visible far away, though.

All NVE in your price range will be manual focus, so you have to adjust a focusing ring when moving from looking at something close up to far away. This isn't too bad, but still a pain.

You have three basic form factors for NVE; rifle-mounted, hand-held and head-mounted. In Ireland, all rifle-mounted night vision (or NVE that can be mounted) are illegal.

Handheld spotting scopes are handy enough, usually come with a built-in IR lamp and have some magnification. They're good for looking at static things in the dark while you're static. You can't really use them for navigation or night hiking, except maybe to check the lay of the land over the next couple of hundred meters. You can use them to look at wildlife, have a gander down your dark back-garden or whatever. They're too heavy to hold to the eye for any length of time, without it becoming a pain in the arse.

Head-mounted night vision is what you need for navigation, working at night, airsoft or paintball, or anything where you need your hands. You can either get monoculars (one tube over one eye), binoculars (one tube for each eye), or pseudo-binocular (one tube feeding both eyes). Monoculars are lighter, preserve the natural night vision of the uncovered eye and are cheaper. Binoculars offer depth perception and pseudo-binoculars are simply cheaper.

For €200, you'd be looking at a cheap monocular or spotting scope. Aldi sell a cheap spotting scope with 3x magnification and an IR illuminator. It's works well enough and costs just over €100. They only sell them once a year, though, in their rotating stock system. Lidl sold one too, but I don't know how it stacked up.

Another option would be the ATN Viper, a head-mounted monocular, again with IR illumination. Vipers come with a head strap (maybe harness is a better word), and work well enough. They seem to be selling for €250-300 online at the minute, but I picked one up on ebay four or five years ago for about €100. I bought it for night hiking and it wasn't really suitable. It was heavy, uncomfortable to wear and ate batteries. Manual focusing was a pain, so I mostly left it focused at about 5m, which left anything farther or closer indistinct.

You can also buy a second hand camcorder with nightvision, something with a fold out screen. These usually have auto-focus, zoom and, of course, you have added benefit of being able to record what you're watching. Plenty of camcorders have night vision these days, and second hand, they come in a lot cheaper than €200.

Finally, the cheapest option is toy NVE from Jakks. You'll have to get it sent over from the states (try ebay), but it only costs about $80, and, to be honest, looks to have similar image quality to the Viper. They look ridiculous, but you only use them in the dark, so that doesn't matter much.

You can improve the performance of any night vision device with an IR torch, which can be picked up at a pretty good price online.

What do you want to use it for? There are better, cheaper options if you're static in a building or have a power supply nearby.

Beaniedude

johngalway wrote: »

You need to think about what you want to do with the unit. How far you expect to see clearly.

I would be using it to look at wildlife

Beaniedude

Donny5 wrote: »

I went looking for night vision a few years back, and did a good bit of research. At the time, the devices were cheaper than they are now (I'm not sure why this is), and I bought and borrowed a few to try out.

Here's what I learnt, more or less:

You won't get good night vision for €200. It's just not that cheap. I don't know why prices aren't falling, or why there aren't more cheap digital night vision devices (which are much cheaper to produce).

The best you can get in that price range is Gen 1, which are old and require significant ambient light or an IR lamp. Because most IR lamps use unfiltered IR LEDs, they produce a much better image but also glow in the visible spectrum, with a cherry red dot. That's probably not a problem unless you want to be covert somewhere, which is the only real reason to use night vision over a torch. The glow isn't too bad, you wouldn't scare wildlife or be visible far away, though.

All NVE in your price range will be manual focus, so you have to adjust a focusing ring when moving from looking at something close up to far away. This isn't too bad, but still a pain.

You have three basic form factors for NVE; rifle-mounted, hand-held and head-mounted. In Ireland, all rifle-mounted night vision (or NVE that can be mounted) are illegal.

Handheld spotting scopes are handy enough, usually come with a built-in IR lamp and have some magnification. They're good for looking at static things in the dark while you're static. You can't really use them for navigation or night hiking, except maybe to check the lay of the land over the next couple of hundred meters. You can use them to look at wildlife, have a gander down your dark back-garden or whatever. They're too heavy to hold to the eye for any length of time, without it becoming a pain in the arse.

Head-mounted night vision is what you need for navigation, working at night, airsoft or paintball, or anything where you need your hands. You can either get monoculars (one tube over one eye), binoculars (one tube for each eye), or pseudo-binocular (one tube feeding both eyes). Monoculars are lighter, preserve the natural night vision of the uncovered eye and are cheaper. Binoculars offer depth perception and pseudo-binoculars are simply cheaper.

For €200, you'd be looking at a cheap monocular or spotting scope. Aldi sell a cheap spotting scope with 3x magnification and an IR illuminator. It's works well enough and costs just over €100. They only sell them once a year, though, in their rotating stock system. Lidl sold one too, but I don't know how it stacked up.

Another option would be the ATN Viper, a head-mounted monocular, again with IR illumination. Vipers come with a head strap (maybe harness is a better word), and work well enough. They seem to be selling for €250-300 online at the minute, but I picked one up on ebay four or five years ago for about €100. I bought it for night hiking and it wasn't really suitable. It was heavy, uncomfortable to wear and ate batteries. Manual focusing was a pain, so I mostly left it focused at about 5m, which left anything farther or closer indistinct.

You can also buy a second hand camcorder with nightvision, something with a fold out screen. These usually have auto-focus, zoom and, of course, you have added benefit of being able to record what you're watching. Plenty of camcorders have night vision these days, and second hand, they come in a lot cheaper than €200.

Finally, the cheapest option is toy NVE from Jakks. You'll have to get it sent over from the states (try ebay), but it only costs about $80, and, to be honest, looks to have similar image quality to the Viper. They look ridiculous, but you only use them in the dark, so that doesn't matter much.

You can improve the performance of any night vision device with an IR torch, which can be picked up at a pretty good price online.

What do you want to use it for? There are better, cheaper options if you're static in a building or have a power supply nearby.

Thanks very much for all your info. Much apreciated.
I'd be using it for looking at wildlife.

Beaniedude

Donny5 wrote: »

There are better, cheaper options if you're static in a building or have a power supply nearby.

What kind of power supply?

Donny5

Beaniedude wrote: »

What kind of power supply?

Well, for cheap and cheerful night vision, and if you have a laptop, you can buy a webcam, take it apart, remove the IR filter, put it back together, plug it in and illuminate your area with an IR torch. The image quality relies entirely on how good a webcam you use, but it's workable. Not great, but workable, and since you can pick up webcams on ebay for not much more than €5 delivered, it's not hard to test. A good webcam will set you back more, though.

Beaniedude

I happened to spot a night vision monicle today in a computer/gadget shop. It was €250.

The make was "Veho". Specifications were :
Nightvision up to 600ft
3x magnification

It did'nt say what gen it was, but for the price i'd assume gen 1? I asked the guy in store about it, but he said he did'nt know much about it.

What you guys think about it?

johngalway

Check out the Nightvision section on the AirgunBBS, plenty of lads there will know what might suit you.

Donny5

Beaniedude wrote: »

I happened to spot a night vision monicle today in a computer/gadget shop. It was €250.

The make was "Veho". Specifications were :
Nightvision up to 600ft
3x magnification

It did'nt say what gen it was, but for the price i'd assume gen 1? I asked the guy in store about it, but he said he did'nt know much about it.

What you guys think about it?

The one Veho sells is the SM50. It's a gen 1 and a claimed range of 650ft. Take that with a bit of salt, though. €250 is steep for it, to be honest. Expect to pay 180-200 online, but of course there's always a premium to buying in a bricks-and-mortar shop.

One thing to note is that Veho don't make any of their own products. They buy and rebrand stuff, and the SM50 is made by a company called Lunaoptics.

Beaniedude

Thanks for info Donny5

testicle

Beaniedude wrote: »

I would be using it to look at wildlife

Through their back windows?

Beaniedude

testicle wrote: »

Through their back windows?

oh hillarious :rolleyes: