I know- fuuuuck. Buy once cry once. I hate all these little rhymes.

Agreed. Gen 2 is great and pretty close to Gen 3 in areas of ambient light, whether full moon or city light pollution. I would struggle to make an argument on one over the other in those settings. But when the real dark darkness shrouds you, Gen 2 performance suffers, and Gen 3 is the clear winner without it being close. Even in the dark like here, I could still use the Gen 2 to navigate by. But I could NOT safely rely on it for situational awareness of possible threats, especially at any distance at all, whereas even in this total darkness I could still reliably spot threats under a few hundred yards easily. I try to show the brutal truth of the tech here, whether it puts it in a good light or not. 👍🏻

It’s almost a full moon tonight, the moon was decently high in the sky, and it was mostly clear with some scattered low haze which just kind of helped illumination, so tonight was pretty ideal conditions for Gen 2 in rural setting. I took the Gen 2 and Gen 3 out again and shot more footage, but the gist was that it was difficult to differentiate one from the other and looking at the viewfinder in the recorder I could totally see people thinking I was just shooting video from one device and claiming it was two different ones, it was that close. So I pulled the recorder back so you could see both devices on screen at the same time as proof I was recording two different ones. It is remarkable how close they seem under conditions with some ambient light to concentrate. But yeah, go into the dark dark, and you can really see the difference.

Hi, thanks for this vid. But what accounts for most of the difference? Is it the FOM? I just bought a 2100+ FOM Photonis ECHO tube. Would it fare better in this comparo than your ‘gen2’ example? Oops, just read further comments, including the statement that the gen2 was only 1000FOM. These other comments were very helpful and answered my question :0)

@@Michael-ff7yl your specs are similar like his gen3. Also without moon or ambilight. He makes a stupid fucked up comparison. 1000fom gen2 vs 2300fom gen3 🤣😁🤦

Yes Photonis Echo+ ain't actually Gen2 and the FOM is over 2000. Maybe some older version?

Thanks for the feedback! I'm always happy when someone finds my stuff useful. :)

Rock on! Glad to have helped!

Glad you liked it!

nice point thanks for the input, I wish we had similar prices here in europe. If I want a good nvg I'd have to buy some cheap gen 3 with echo tubes but I'll be paying at least 10k just for green phosphorus. Idk if I'm willing to pay that much yet. Going for some gen2+ echo tubes is probably not the worst decision for now. I'll still be paying like 6k. I could go cheaper but I hate monos. And your point about Biden flooding every country I agree. Although I'm not from the US I dont see how it was an intelligent move to literally arm the terroristic enemy with stuff they couldnt even come close to producing themselves. Especially cuz I as an individual cant even buy anything higher than gen 1 from the US and import it (I tried). Yet leaving everything to the enemy is no problem. I just don't see how that was a good move. I get world market but there needs to be some restriction that the gear at least only reaches allied countries or those that aren't a potential threat.

Thank you for the info. Where are you buying your Elbit Gen3 tubes?

@@woodsghost9088 kosher supplies Primary arms has had some good deals in pre built nods with Elbit tubes Steele industries has also had some unbelievable deals on Elbit tubes Apollo gear or Apollo Nightvision can’t remember the name but they are good.

Fantastic! Thank you!! Both for the earlier write-up and this information. And fast response too! Thank you very much!

@@FireDramine7 where can I buy gen 2 echos binos in europe¿? thanks!

It’s all about difficulty of conditions. My Gen 2 does a great job 70% of the time, a acceptable job another 10% of the time, but the last 20% is where the Gen 3 really shines and the Gen 2 falters. It’s under exceptional conditions / difficult conditions that the difference really shows up in a glaring way. And this difference can be mitigated with IR illuminators under most conditions, or by staying closer to the city or staying out in open spaces where the ambient light helps. But if you really have to be out in nasty weather in exceedingly remote locations, or under dense tree cover, yeah, Gen 3 definitely has the edge.

I pretty much agree with you across the board. I’ve used lower end Gen 3 and yeah, you still need IR illuminator in exceptionally dark instances. It’s not a common occasion where the benefit of a high end Gen 3 really shines through. Gen 2+ would suffice for most people, like you said, and serve well for the majority of situations people would use it in.

Oh. I agree Gen 2 and Gen 3 function very similarly when there is moonlight, ambient city light, or IR illuminator assistance. It’s when it’s really dark out with no light assistance that the differences between the gear start to show significantly. I think Gen 2 does the job fine most of the time, and you can use an illuminator if you really need to bump up a bit. And the saving is significant. The difference in price between these units is almost four thousand dollars. The Gen 2 was a little over a thousand, and the Gen 3 was right about five thousand. That’s a significant amount of money for not a huge jump in difference of function most days. The downside to using illuminator is that anyone else with night vision gear can see it too. It’s just like walking around in the dark with a flashlight is to the naked eye, that’s how an illuminator is to any NVGs. But you can use an IR illuminator tactically, just like you can use a flashlight tactically, you don’t just run around with it on nonstop, which is the go-to argument a lot of people make about Gen 2 vs Gen 3, “using an illuminator gives your position away”. Yes, it does. So does a flashlight. But you can spot strobe (rapid on and off) to see a target and move immediately so you’re not where your light just was.

@@ThatThermalGuy I have a GP Gen 2+ PVS 14( I think, long story). What would be the most realistic upgrade path? Is it worth it to just go all the way to an unfilmed tube or pvs 14 when I save enough or is there something in the middle worth getting? Considering getting green phos again because i dont mind it but i also know Unfilmed only comes in WP afaik

@@stingwing978 so, it’s difficult to say without having a realistic understanding of your need / use and budget. For most people, farmers and ranchers, security, preppers and survivalists, airsofters and milsim enthusiasts, etc, I would say no, you don’t need unfilmed. If you truly don’t have a budgetary constraint, then yes, do it. Every day of the week. But if you are a normal Joe, and a thousand to fifteen hundred bucks is a big deal, then no, save your cash and get a thin filmed unit. A normal person with normal needs will be well suited by any off the shelf Gen 3 autogated device in white or green with an FOM of around 1900-2000. It should cost about $3 grand to $3250 if youre patient and catch a sale or coupon. The OMNI 8 spec units and unfilmed units are more expensive. The aviation grade are more expensive. Unless you are a police officer, bounty hunter / bond agent, mercenary, or soldier; an occupation where your life truly depends on the tiniest distinctions and rapid reaction capability every day, you don’t need that top tier level of gear. Never forget for a long time the average soldier in a war theatre fielded used units that only needed to meet a basic criteria and averaged 1900 FOM. Everybody wants the latest and greatest top tier gear to give themselves the best advantage possible, understandably so. But truly, just the average gear is such a game changer, in how much it opens your operational flexibility, that you do t need much more unless you’re in that small cross section of people who live or die by the sword every day. There comes a point in nightvision where the increasing costs accelerate while the returns for what you gear become less and less noticeable and even minuscule. Someone in the field with an average night vision unit that costs $3200 will have darn near the same survival chance as the guy with the top tier $4500 NVGs. Even going head to head. It’s not so much the difference in performance of the devices that will determine who wins in that face off. It’s the TRAINING of the person behind it. A spec ops veteran with a Gen 2 will kick the butt of a weekend warrior with top tier NVG gear. So my recommendation, since you asking for the best upgrade path, is to get anew, average, autogated Gen 3 NVG unit, around 2000FOM, for about 3k-3.5k, and that different between price tags to the 4.5k model, go and spend it on a night vision operations course. If you were willing to spend 4,500 on NVG, then use that extra $1000-$1250 to go take a professional NVG course, or scout operations course, or recon course. Learn how to move, learn how to use the gear the most effectively. Because that is what actually makes the difference at night. Or, use that 1000-1500 dollar difference to buy a thermal unit, like the AGM rattler, or a Taipan. The reason people want the top tier stuff is because they be worry they won’t see something, that they’ll miss something. Well, speaking from experience, even top tier gear NVG is difficult to impossible to spot a camo flagged adversary at 300 yards with good stalking principles and training. The $1500 difference between night vision gear won’t let you see that guy either way. But that thermal will see him… Which launches into a whole additional lengthy discussion on thermal versus NVG, and what upgrade path you really want to take because what are you really intending to use it for, offense or defensive? Etc. In short summary, I say NVGs are assaulting, aggression, attacking a target or fixed point. I say thermals are for defensive posture, reacting to an assaulting force or aggressor, defending a fixed location, repelling an adversary. So I would have to ask, truly, what is it you plan to spend most of your time doing, and how much benefit will truly be gained by simply increasing you existing operational capability slightly by moving up a generation in tech, versus, truly expanding your operational capability by migrating to and adding in a completely new technology, like thermal. Most people would be served better by having a decent Gen 2 NVG plus a thermal scope, than they would be by upgrading and having two of same thing (two NVG units). When things go bump in the night on my property, do you know what I reach for? It’s not the NVGs. I have helmet mounted articulating binocular NVGs (L3 unfilmed aviation grade) paired with a Steiner IR laser on my battle rifle. Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in that set up. But I reach past that set up and grab I grab the rifle with the simple $1900 thermal scope on it instead. Why? Because in the span of a 3 second rapid sweep, I know the positions, distances, numbers and types of threats facing me, whether it’s daytime or nighttime, foggy or popped smoke, camouflaged or partially hidden, etc. all information I can’t get with the same accuracy or speed with NVGs no matter how much money I pour into them. The simple and relatively cheap mid-grade thermal tells me more, and faster and more reliably, for one tenth the cost of the NVG set up. Just some food for thought.

Good question! Well, the benefit of a river or lake is it is wide open. In wide open spaces, you naturally have more ambient light. Also, people tend to build close to waterways, so you would probably have some ambient light from towns as well. I would say Gen 2+ probably could handle the job most of the time. The problem is when it’s not most of the time. Gen 3 would cover better, but is also a lot more expensive. The other option is get Gen 2, but, buy some IR floodlights and attach to the boat, or IR illuminators and tape them down. I did something like this while off road driving by Gen 2. I had a strong IR illuminator flashlight, and I would hold it out the window (sometimes I taped it to the roof) to light the way by when driving on moonless nights through thick forest. They have IR lights (like KC lights) specifically for this purpose, I was just cheap.

It’s a commercial class previous-generation Photonis Gen 2 (non-echo, non-autogated). It’s a 1,000 FOM unit, with industry standard EBI of 1 (which is a Photonis rated EBI of 0.1). The housing is a GT14, it was assembled by Bering Optics and sold on opticsplanet. I picked it up for $1,100 brand new. The camera used to record this was a Nikon L330.

@@ThatThermalGuy Okay! Thanks for the answer😊👌

@@ThatThermalGuy hi what’s the difference between this Photonis and echo?

@@4runner1grfe an echo unit is a higher spec unit with more features. I understand some echo can come in non-autogated, but I think by default all echo units are autogated. They also are typically in the 1900FOM range average, whereas this one is in the 1000FOM range. An echo spec Photonis will be clearer, more sensitive, and have less scintillation in the field of view at extremely low light than this Comm-Spec Photonis unit demonstrated here. AnnEcho unit would operate somewhere in the middle between the results of the two devices seen here. Not as bright and clear as the L3 unfilmed Gen 3, but not as dark and noisy as the comm-spec Photonis. It’s a good middle ground with good performance. The big takeaway is to remember I did the testing under pretty much the absolutely hardest conditions possible. Under normal circumstances, the difference in the two is minimal, and I actually tend to advise people away from the higher end, because the cost is simply not going to be worth it for most people. About $1100 for low end, about $5000 for high end, and about $2500-3500 for in the middle. I think well over 95% of folks would do fine with the middle. I bought the highest of the high end simply because I could and I didn’t want to forever wonder what I could have gotten if I’d paid an extra grand. Now I have it. I love it. But I will openly tell people you probably won’t get much extra out of aviation grade high end unfilmed L3, so save the extra and use it to buy a IR laser for your rifle or helmet rig for your NODs. It’s beautiful, but not necessary for night time operation for the average person. A high end Photonis echo or mid grade Gen 3 will do you just fine, unless you actively expect to be part of a team in regular combat, like a civilian contractor. Then I’d say go with the aviation grade unfilmed L3.

It’s definitely harder when rural and no moonlight and heavy forest canopy and dark cloud cover or poor weather. Severe limitations for sure. Looking into darkened buildings, sheds, carports, caves, places like that, yeah, just forget about it. Need to add the IR illuminator. 👍🏻. NVGs help immensely, but they’re no magic bullet. They still have limitations.

Basically, the Gen 2 is FOM 1000, and the Gen 3 is 2500 FOM. Under ordinary night conditions, with some moonlight, during use in urban/suburban/open field/lightly forested conditions the two perform very similar. In other words, most of the time, the differences in the units are minimal. Under difficult circumstances though, like combining no moon, heavy overcast, extreme rural (no ambient city light pollution), deep forest, all together… then there is a huge difference in performance between the two. The light gathering capability of the Gen 3 really outshines then.

Ah! Good question! Housings! The L3 filmless part is the actual tube inside that does the work. You also need the lenses in front of the tube and behind the tube which bring the image from the outside world to the tube, and then scale the enhanced image produced by the tube up so you can see it naturally, and then you need the battery compartment to supply power to the tube. All of these pieces are needed internally to make the device work. Now, you can tuck all of these pieces inside different housings. The PVS-14 is the designation for one such housing, or outer shell if that term makes more sense. There are several different shells on the market designed to accept, enclose and protect the battery compartment, tube and lenses. The PVS-14 is one such shell, and it is standardized and has been adopted by the US military. It is by far the most prolific housing in use, and as such, just as the term “bandaid” is used to refer to every adhesive wound dressing out whether it is a name brand “bandaid” or not, people use the term pvs-14 to refer to night vision devices as if that were the description of the device itself, when in fact the PVS-14 is just the housing, the empty outer shell. The armor casing which protects the tube, and which defines mounting options available to you. The internals can change inside that pvs-14 housing. You can have Gen 1 tube, Gen 2 tube or Gen 3 tube inside a pvs-14 housing. L3 is just one tube manufacturer. You also have Elbit/Harris tubes, and Photonis tubes. Those other tubes can be inside the pvs-14 instead of L3 tubes. As well, the internals can be placed in a different housing, one besides the PVS-14 housing. An example is the GT-14 housing, which can accept all the different configurations in it as well, but is smaller, overall more compact, and lighter weight than the pvs-14, creating less bulk sitting on top of your helmet to snag on branches or doorways. It has fewer mounting hardware options available to it though since it wasn’t picked up as the military standard, but you will see it in use with police forces, private security contractors, and civilians, and I imagine, other non-US militaries. So hopefully that statement makes more sense now. L3 is a tube manufacturer. Filmless is a type of Gen 3 tube (thin filmed and filmless are the two most popular tube types in Gen 3 right now, with filmless winning the popular support for its better image in extreme low light situations), and PVS-14 is the housing designation containing that particular subtype of tube by that particular manufacturer. :)

@@ThatThermalGuy now i got it!! Thanks a lot, don't know how to thank you, or maybe i know! Subscribing to the channel, thanks for spreading knowledge, appreciate it!

@@sherpa4204 no problem! 😉 and thanks for watching!

First, your assertion of “mislead by wrong comparison” is incorrect. I’ll explain why. You’ll understand by the end of this post. There are dozens of 1:1 comparisons out there for tubes that are close in numbers (Gen 2, Gen 3 thin film and Gen 3 filmless, but all at 2100 FOM for example). This is a popular video type from what I’ve seen. It was not my intention to do yet another 1:1 comparison video when there are already so many out there. What would that do to help the community? Nothing. My intention was to show the difference between a budget Gen 2 and a top tier Gen 3 under about the harshest real world operating conditions they can be subjected to. Which is something I have not seen a lot of videos out there on, but, is a subject I had been asked to do a video on. I have people who are preppers and survivalists and security oriented individuals, and they are on budgets, and they talk about getting the cheapest Gen 2 unit they can find, and say “what’s the difference anyway? I see gen 2 next to gen 3 videos on KZfaq and they look the same”. And this is THE EXACT PROBLEM of those 1:1 comparison videos (like you demanded I do instead). The problem is most of those gen 2 vs gen 3 videos are done under moderate to easy conditions, and give people the wrong impression of the difference of light enhancement / gain between the different tubes types. And they are done often near cities in nice weather because the video operators and KZfaqrs don’t want to go out of their way in crappy conditions and get themselves and their gear rained on. Etc. Or to drive somewhere extremely remote and far away from the city where they live to shoot a video, so it’s often comparison videos flooded by nearby ambient city light even if they’re at a park or field or a rock bluff (sometimes they’re on a overlook literally filming the city below, lol). So by default, the 1:1 comparison videos are often done under easy conditions. And once someone sees a gen 2 vs gen 3 comparison of similar numbers (a 1:1 comparison like you said I should do instead) those same people then go on to think that’s the way ALL gen 2 will compare to ALL gen 3. So why is that? Well, first, it is understandable, because most retailers of nightvision simply say the tube is gen 2 or gen 3 in the product description. The majority of online retailers of night vision with the best deals and the majority of places people think to physically go to shop for night vision (most people think of camera stores or hunting / sporting retailers), all those places all just sell the device in a box with a price tag and it simply says the generation. No specs published. Of course not, because they would have to modify the print on every box to reflect the differences of each unit. That doesn’t make financial sense to a mass producer. So what do you? You publish the Gen type, or, maybe if you’re lucky, a set of minimum resolution and SNR. But you don’t know what you’re actually getting. And the people selling the gear don’t know anything about it either. So you can’t even ask for help. But then, there’s a second problem, where even if the specs are published, most people don’t know what level of gain is good or how it compares to another number in real world function, or what EBI is, or when SNR actually comes into play, etc. and the store people just sell it, they don’t know either, or worse, they think they know and give bad info. So yeah, most retailers when you’re buying night vision don’t give you all the specs. Just the generations. And because of this, because this is how it is with virtually every other retailed item in existence, when there are only two factors to choose by (gen 2 or gen 3 in this case), it makes people looking at it believe that all gen 2 will perform more or less the same and all gen 3 will perform more or less the same. Because people are used to that. The specs listed are the specs that matter, how can it not be? All the same item with the same spec is the same price. The idea that some of those units could be outstanding and some of those units sucking eggs is incomprehensible to an average purchaser who has no way to distinguish between the two and still have them be the same price and same description. That’s like a lottery. Truth in advertising has people brainwashed into not being able to understand this concept, and thinking it’s not possible. Of course, we know the truth because we’ve operated in this industry and done the research. But we are NOT the norm. This is the reality of what people are left to believe, and then they see 1:1 comparisons on KZfaq that reinforces that idea. You see the problem yet? So then average Joe goes shopping for night vision, and has watched numerous 1:1 comparisons, has convinced himself of the marginal difference between gen 2 and Gen 3 because of those 1:1 comparison videos, which, by the way, were all shot in a city suburb park with crazy ambient light on a full moon night in perfect weather, And figures he’ll just get the cheapest gen 2 gear he can since it’s all the same anyway. At this point, average Joe now believes there is minimal difference between budget gen 2 and top tier gen 3. You see the logic train of folly here? So this video was made in direct response to THAT thinking train that I was encountering, frankly, frighteningly often. And because of repeated stories of people who bought budget gear unaware of the differences. Or who had been convinced top tier NVG had little operational difference of capability than Gen 2 because of all these 1:1 comparison videos all over the net. So the purpose of this video was twofold. First, so that newbies who were out there with that belief looking at KZfaq videos convincing themselves of this flawed train of reason they’ve been led down, that they might see this video, watch it, and be like “hey, what the heck, this isn’t what other videos show. Why is yours so different”, which gets them reading comments (where I explain things, just like this post) and talking to me so I can proceed to talk to them about the realities of night vision before they buy something expensive that they can’t actually use the way they intended. And second, it was a video made by request for a specific group of people I knew but who lived several states away from me and therefore I couldn’t just have them look through the two tubes first hand. They wanted to see how a budget device compared to a top tier device, and why? Specifically because of all the reasons I laid out above. And if you look in my other videos, you’ll see i made one of these for comparing the two under good conditions, AND, I made one for comparing the two under harsh conditions. So these videos were purpose made by request, and I then designed them to illicit contact to open a dialog to talk to people about all this stuff. So, coming back around, your assertion is wrong. You wouldn’t have been completely mislead and this is not a wrong comparison. You just didn’t understand the point and purpose of the video, which has done it’s job perfectly. It brought you here and started you talking and got a dialog going about what this comparison actually represents, and now you have a better understanding. So even you learned as you came here complaining I did it all wrong and I should do a different video. Because the purpose of the video was very specific and designed to drive discussion, and to show a different comparison for a different reason. Your complaint post actually proves the case. Lol. Thanks for watching! PS, while I believe your Photonis unit probably does a great job, I can pretty much guarantee you it can’t see as well as the L3 filmless in the harsh conditions I filmed. There is a lot of clarity and brightness lost in translation from NVG to recording device, and further loss in video editing, filetype conversion, and format compression, and even further loss in KZfaq compression and streaming. What you see in the video is a marked degradation compared to actual real world performance. And the fact you said your Photonis looks just like the L3 in this video (after the actual performance of the L3 has been degradated four fold) is proof of the fact of the difference between tubes. Go grab a camera and walk into the deepest darkest woods you can at least an hours drive away from any small town, on a moonless night, during a storm, and, while standing under a thick tree canopy, with no IR illumination (or any other illumination source) try to film through the eyepiece of your Photonis with a video camera. Then convert the file and upload it to KZfaq and watch it and compare that end result to what you saw firsthand looking through the unit when you were actually out there. You’ll see just how much loss of performance from degradation happens in video representations of NVG units online. You might even find the end result that you upload to KZfaq, looks just like the Gen 2 performance in my own video here after it’s all done. Which then should make you question how much brighter and clearer was the L3 first hand and looking through it live. Seriously, go do this experiment. It might be eye opening for you.

The answer depends entirely on your needs and operating environment, and purpose behind having night vision. I honestly feel sometimes that i bought more than I actually needed. The Gen 2 functions well for me in most circumstances. The high end Gen 3 I got is overkill. Probably a mid grade / average or even low end Gen 3 would do what I need it for. I bought a top shelf tier 1 operator PVS-14 because I could, and because I wanted the reference point of owning the best so I knew what the price tags buy you. Having done that, I can say most people probably really only need what would be considered today a low to mid grade / average 1600-1900 FOM Gen 3 unit (this is what I used as a cop in the late 90’s to early 2000’s). The extra expenditure versus actual perceptible gain past that level is negligible. I’ve used both, under tactical conditions. If you have the capability and funds to switch a Gen 2 unit to a Gen 3 unit, it’s probably worth it simply for the additional system gain (overall image brightness), unless you have a high performing Gen 2 already and the Gen 3 you are looking at comes with poor marks in EBI, SNR, and resolution…. Then it might not be worth the swap out depending on your environment. Again though, a lot of it comes down to your need and expected operating environment. If you are in the suburbs, or proximal to a large city, the ambient light in your environment will work great with Gen 2 and you won’t get a lot in exchange for a Gen 3. Same with living in wide open expanses like plains or desert where the operating environment is in obscured and there is no shade canopy from trees. If you are remote rural and in a forested environment, then yes, you will get a lot of return for trading up your tube to Gen 3.

The point wasn’t so much a generational comparison as a budget comparison. This was essentially the cheapest Gen 2 unit on the market versus pretty much the most expensive gen 3. A lot of people, especially budget preppers, want an idea for what the cheapest analog (non gen 1) night vision unit they can get will do for them, and how that compares to the good stuff. They are buying storable food, armor, water filtration, solar generators, etc., and are looking for places to cut corners on expenditures but still get useful performance out of the tools they get. They are looking at the cheapest night vision in the gen 2 range, and wondering how it compares to higher end units, either to decide to buy it but know their adversaries capability gap, or, to decide to pass on it and save for better gear. I am active on multiple prepping forums and groups, and have had that question posed to me many times in many places. So I made that video so I can share the link whenever someone asks. So no, it’s not a fair generational comparison, but that’s not why I did this. There are plenty of videos, probably dozens, of gen 2 side by side with gen 3, with both units having the same FOM ratings. The subject you brought up has been covered by many others here, and didnt need me to contribute to it. But what I haven’t seen, is someone doing a side by side of the most budget friendly night vision versus the top tier night vision so you can see truly see the difference in capability between low and high price tags. That’s why I made this. :) Hope that explains things. 😁

What is the nature of the environment you plan to operate in? What level of ambient light do you expect to encounter? Is autogating necessary for you? Do you expect potential opposition to deploy white lights (flood lights) or IR flood lights against you? Are vehicles going to be a problem in your area of operations (headlights)? What about weapon mounted lasers? If you’re looking at it for hiking or hunting, the answer is much different than if you are looking at it for tactical purposes, defense or offense. If I’m going to answer your question, I want to make sure I’m answering it in a way that would be meaningful to you. :) My follow up might be in a couple days. I’m not ignoring. I’m just tied up for 18 hours tomorrow starting at 4am. :) bear with me. I’ll answer as best I can! I promise!

@@ThatThermalGuyI'm considering using it for hiking or hunting. The night vision I was using was made in Russia with a FOM value of about 1,000, but it was almost invisible at night without moonlight. So I'm considering purchasing a new Night vision and I have two purchase candidates. Since I am not an American, I cannot purchase tubes made in the USA. Therefore, we are considering ECHO tubes from Photonis and third-generation tubes from Russia. According to the seller, the ECHO tube has a FOM value of about 1900 and the Russian one is about 1500. The environment in which I operate has very little random lighting at night. In fact, you have to work with moonlight and moonlight alone. When dark clouds cover the moonlight, it's so dark that you can't see it even if you put your hand in front of your nose.

So I'm wondering which tube to choose. One of my airsoft mania friends recommended the 3rd gen tube because it's great in low light conditions. Another friend recommended the Photonis product, saying that the performance of Russian products is very poor. Night vision is very expensive, so it takes a lot of time to agonize over product selection. Which product is better to choose?

@@qoqooq7456 you ask a difficult question. I’m honestly inclined to choose the echo tube in your situation. The echo tubes are well proven, and are of newer design. They can perform quite well in all but the worst darkness and still do decent there. The echo you mentioned has better clarity both in signal and in resolution than you would get from the Russian. The rub is that, yes, the Russian would likely have superior light gain in extreme darkness. But it’s still going to struggle, as all NVG do, under extreme darkness situations. And in that struggle, in the extreme darkness, the additional benefit provided by the higher gain will likely be offset by the worse signal noise and reduced resolution. So while the Russian unit would likely produce an image under extreme conditions where the Echo would be dark, that image produced would be swimming in noise and blurry, so really, where one tube fails, the other essentially fails at the same time. Its almost a net balance between the two because of where each has its limitations. That’s why I say I would lean toward the Echo. In anything better than extreme darkness (moonless night, heavy overcast cloudy skies, heavy forest canopy, rural location), both will do decent, and while they are doing decent, the higher clarity of the Photonis tube would likely serve you better. I found a video with a person comparing multiple tubes. He has an Echo tube alongside a Russian Gen 3 tube (top right versus bottom left). Watch it here: m.kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oKtmis2BvqzQmo0.html You can see what I mean by minimal actual usefulness difference. So if there is minimal actual useful difference, I would default to the newer and likely more rugged Photonis tube with better clarity. It’s a difficult decision though. If you could get system/tube gain specs from each that might swing a decision one way or the other. If the Russian had a gain of 65,000 where the echo had a gain of 30,000 then that would swing me back toward the Russian unit. But short of a convincing shift in stats there, I, personally, would choose the Echo.

Oh absolutely agreed. Still a littler darker than an L3 filmless, but a lot better performance than this non-echo 1000fom commercial Photonis . I actually generally recommend higher end Gen 2 (like a 2300FOM echo) to budget conscious folks.

I actually like the GT-14 housing more than the PVS-14 housing. Not as many options as PVS-14 aftermarket stuff I suppose. But the GT-14 is a more compact form factor, and seems lighter weight and shorter front to back so not as much mass is as far from the body. It seems to ride better on a helmet and not get hung up in stuff as much. Even though my GT-14 is only Gen 2, I actually tend to grab it more often than the Gen 3 specifically for those reasons unless it’s a REALLY dark night or I know I’m looking for something under heavy canopy. If you manage to get your tube in a GT-14 housing, I think you’ll like it. 👍🏻

get a good housing like a PVS14 or a NT940 if you're in europe and throw your dipol away (you cant blame the tube if you're using a housing like that...) I have a XX1441 tube in a NT940 with only 1200 FOM and it's great even in low light conditions

you should see Gen 1 ...

It has been a couple years since I looked into this, so I am not positive, and I’m certainly not providing legal advice. Lol. But from what I remember, you are correct. Gen 3 is banned from exportation. But Gen 2 is not. And you can get a very good Gen 2 that will darn near rival most Gen 3 tubes in the UK (I know because several in my audience were in the UK and sought my advice prior to purchasing). The higher end Photonis Gen 2 tubes thst cost as much as Gen 3, have similar performance to Gen 3. The biggest difference between Gen 2 and Gen 3 is their light concentrating capability (gain). Some of the high end Gen 2 tubes darn near match or exceed the low end Gen 3 tubes in gain. And they are available overseas and in use by UK police forces and the like to my understanding. My video here was a comparison of a budget NVG ($1500 today) and a top shelf NVG ($5000 today). A top shelf Gen 2 will give you really good performance. It’s just not a budget device. So don’t let this video dissuade you from buying Gen 2.

Hahahaha! That’s funny! 🤣

That's too funny and way too true. Just like batchelor: quads, trucks, rifles, golf clubs, reloading rooms/gun rooms and gamer setups for you younger guys.

Excellent!!! You can star gaze with either and see a hundred times to a thousand times the stars (and UFOs!) with either device than you can with the naked eye. I’ve tracked comets, satellites, aircraft, and some I couldn’t ID (UFOs?) that I could not see with the naked eye.

Finally the real questions

@@WalrusWinking no kidding! I’ve just been waiting for people to ask about their use tracking UFOs, Sasquatch, ghost hunting, etc. Been kinda disappointed no one went there. Lol!

@@ThatThermalGuy Running through the woods after bigfoot using night vision with the boys sounds fun. lol

Umn… if you know and understand the tech, sure, this video seems pointless. But you are talking as someone who already understands the tech. Most people do not. And most of the videos out there show comparisons between close in performance units even with generational differences. Why would I make yet another one? What would the point of close comparison be when that’s been some many times? That doesn’t teach anything. And because of those videos, people who haven’t used night vision before and want to buy it think Gen 2 functions the same as Gen3. And they ask me if the difference in price is actually worth it. This video, like most of mine, was asked for by many people with no knowledge of night vision equipment who wanted to see the difference between the lowest cost gen 2 available and the highest cost Gen 3 available. Preppers. Airsofters. Etc. People wanted to know what the difference in performance really was between a budget unit and a high end unit. What the real world performance difference was like. And was was the price difference worth it. If you know of another video out there that actually addresses that question and was published before mine, please, let me know. I couldn’t find one at the time to reference for people asking me these questions. There was no real world hard-condition comparison videos between budget and high end so people could see the difference. I filled an information void. That’s why this video was done.

No, you’re wrong here bud. Sorry, but true. Gen 1 would be completely blacked out under these conditions. Gen 2 struggles but at least produces an image. I know because I set up the filming with a Gen 2 unit with a Photonis Gen 2 tube. I included a picture of the devices used in the video, it is a Bering Optics GT-14 Gen 2 white phosphor unit. You can verify the specs at the Bering optics website. Besides this, I have Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3 and have tested all three under these conditions. Gen 1 completely fails to produce any image at all. Maybe you need to read the video description again, these are “EXTREMELY hard conditions”.

You literally would not see anything but blackness with Gen 1, all gen 1 in these conditions needs IR light to see anything beyond a few feet, I know cos I've owned several Gen 1's and currently have 2 Gen 2+ monoculars. If you notice from the video there is no IR light illuminating the area the OP is in.

Send me one, and I’ll film it. 😳😁

@@ThatThermalGuy you will reship it back?

@@imx3001 I run a shipping/receiving department for a corporation. I get great rates on insured shipping. I’ll send it back, no issue. For right now, I would say hold off. I have a few things someone on here recently sent me, and I’m trying to get some videos done with their materials first, so I can get their stuff back to them. I don’t want to get a back log of stuff laying around. Especially things like that. 😉

@@ThatThermalGuy if you want i can visit you with some of my stuff andcwe can also make trip together. I always wanted to make a us trip. Your invited to europe germany too. Mate

@@imx3001 I appreciate that! Unfortunately, for the time being, I’m kind of locked down here. I’m still in the process of building my homestead, the house isnt even finished yet. Lol. But sounds great for a future trip. :) I live kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s a lot of driving to get to “someplace” lol. I’m about a 8 hour drive from Seattle, 11 hours from Portland, 2 hours from Spokane, and 2.5 hours from Glacier National Park in Montana. I’m not really on the way to, or near to, any place most people choose to see in the US. But I love it here. 😎

First, a qualifier. I have the Bering Optics GT14. There are a couple other GT14 manufacturers out there, and the housing DO vary between them. So, first, I’ll say the PVS-14 is standardized. No matter what manufacturer you get a PVS-14 from, they will all come in essentially the same form factor / housing / mounting options. So that’s a one up for the PVS-14. The one down is they are more expensive. To the GT14, they are less expensive which is plus. To the Bering Optics GT14, the form factor is smaller and lighter than a PVS-14, which I really like. I got the GT-14 before the PVS-14, and because I was used to the smaller nature of the GT-14, when I got the PVS-14 it felt like a bus parked next to a motorcycle. Lol. Stuck out further, weighed more, little clunkier and not as streamlined. I like and prefer the GT-14 form factor. The Bering Optics GT-14 also mounted the same as the PVS-14 with what I think is a 1/4” tripod hole on the bottom. Other GT-14 manufacturers have like a dovetail or modified bayonet mount on them instead of the standardized 1/4” tripod mounting hole. That means they are not as interchangeable, and a lot of the cheap and widely available mounting options may not work for the other models. Having the same mounting method as the PVS-14 allowed me to use industry standard and widely available mounting hardware for the PVS-14 to mount my GT-14, including cheap surplus (my first mount setup was a cheap surplus Norotos with J Arm). I currently run my GT-14 on an articulating bridge with a PVS-14. It plays nice on all the standard hardware I’ve tried it with, and I can hot swap my PVS-14 and GT-14 interchangeably on helmet mounts and RIS rails on rifles. So, all things considered, I really like the GT-14, prefer the smaller size and weight, and it’s versatility to work with standard mounts at a cheaper price. Definitely do homework in the GT-14 you’re getting though, as, like I mentioned, the GT-14 is not standardized and there are different housings that are not as interchangeable. The insides are also different. Sone have autogating, sone don’t. Sone are Gen 2, sone are Gen 3, and so forth. But that’s my opinion. I like them. :)