recently just bought a PVS14 with an elbit tube (it will be here friday woo!) and i was honestly considering building my own wit NNVT tubes, and after seeing this video im glad i didn't go that route, though the NNVT dont appear super horrible just a bit dark.
I recently got a PVS 14 with Elbit TF. This is pretty spot on comparison. Resolution appears to be good for all brands, it’s the gain that drops off significantly with the cheaper tubes. Elbit seems to be a great cost effective option with serviceable performance, I’m happy with it.
@@daytonrhotenit's a superpower... paired with a great quality thermal scope you're seeing in the dark of night what man has only had fire to help with throughout thousands of years of history. A real life superpower available to us here and now. It's an incredible thing and we'll worth every penny when you don't have power for weeks after a major hurricane destroys the infrastructure. (Ian in 2022 and Charlie in 2004. Both direct hits).
The fact that the Elbot has 9 resolution points higher than both the L3 and Photonis, and the fact that Photonis has about 600 FOM lower than both, it's pretty impressive to see the Photonis perform like it does. Photonis are great for urban settings.
I'm a European, so the Echo was the best I could get. I love the echo! It can be slightly dim in some situations, but my eyes adjust to that very well. I don't like too bright of an image anyway. The contrast and small halos are amazing!
I went with NVD BNVD SG's with Elbit tubes, SNR 33.9/34.4, RES 76/76, EBI 0.6/1.2, FOM 2576/2614. I am super happy with their performance, and at their price point. Your videos are an excellent resource for folks trying to understand NV, keep up the good work!
God o mighty that those L3 and Elbit tubes are burning hot! Awesome video, enjoyed watching. Straight up, honest, and fun content. Keep up the good work CNV.
Hell yeah! 🇺🇸🔥 Edit : this is is super helpful thank you guys and I know all of us appreciate the transparency and effort you guys are going through over there.
The nnvt definitely isn’t as good but it held its own quite well considering the cost difference compared to Elbit and L3. A solid choice for most average night vision buyers.
I bought couple of months ago Photonis 4G and specs are: FOM 2638 and SNR 34,72 Earlier I bought Photonis Echo+ and specs are: FOM 2227 and SNR 33,24 I'm very happy on them both ❤️😃 I live in Finland 🇫🇮 so I cannot test or bye L3Harris, but it would be interesting. And I know for sure they are good tubes.
We have a lot more tubes in stock that are not listed on our website inventory. Feel free to give us a call on what you're looking for and what your budget is and we'll get you the most performance for your money.
The more I see actual NNVT footage, the more impressed I become. For Gen 2, those are not to be scoffed at for those just entering the nightvision realm and want to do so at the lowest price point possible. Hell, I own several Gen 3 setups and plan to pick a few up.
@@aesthetic8780 Not. For the price of most NVT-5 available and definitely NVT-7 ....I'm buying Elbit, Photonis or L3. If you are attempting to claim there are prices at NVT-4 price level...feel free to share.
Very nicely done video, however, it would have been nicer had you went ahead and compared comparative FOM tubes. Very few videos, if any, do this, one reason may be that not too many people are aware that high FOM, high gain glass-on-glass tubes are available from Photonis (2900 FOM, 80,000 gain) - almost everything we see compares our ECHOs to the best L3/Elbit have to offer - and even then, its apparent that all tubes perform fairly well. What this video does nicely is show that what looks good, looks good - with "good" defined by the user, and that people should always purchase what looks good to them at the price point they can manage regardless of who makes the tube. NNVT had decent all-around performance and comes in at a very nice price point for those getting into night vision.
We compared what could be considered one of the best examples (highest performance) of each of the products we offer. We do not offer the product you mentioned. I think I touched on this in the intro briefly. There will be more videos like this to come, if you would like us to test some of the higher performance offerings from photonis I would need those to complete the test. Please contact us if you are interested in providing them.
When you’re in the Lancaster, PA area please let us know and we’ll give you a distributor tour of our facility. Bring your favorite NODS and we’ll run them side by side in our calibrated night vision demonstration room.
Well do better than that. I’ll fly one rep from your company to Lancaster. Bring your best and highest performance NOD to our lab and you’ll get to interact directly with a manufacturer of image intensifier tubes and ask any questions you want. Let me know who and when.
After watching this comparison, I feel those high end tubes are superior in the dark woods but in the urban city area, I think NNVT is more cost effective and also less noticeable ghosting effect.
Great job at the 20mins mark showing off the shadows... most miss the importance of this aspect and i thank you for showing the comparisons Of the 4, only 2 are military grade/ milspec. L3Harris & Elbit Furthermore, only the aforementioned two come with a 10yr warranty. The two Chinese brand "nv's" youll be lucky to get a 30day or 1yr. Both the L3 & Elbit are ITAR restricted. Chinese are available for international trade. Excellent video!!!
I would say the Photonis Echo is comparable to the Elbit PH...just dimmer. Its a shame photonis is getting hard to get. I also noticed a huge difference in contrast between the L3 and the Elbit tube. Weird how i actually prefer the Elbit tube alot more in that regard while I own an L3 tube myself
@@kevin11288 I guess video still doesnt do a justice lol. I used to have an XX1441BR and it did "ok", it saw in the dark lol. I upgraded to an L3 Omni 8 tube and it was an absolute dramatic difference. But looking at Photonis compared to NNVT....ugh. I just cant stand that NNVT is becoming a thing rn
@@saltyreviews1848 yea i havent looked through any elbit tube in person. I dont own a WP filmless L3, just an Omni 8 GP L3 tube and it fucks pretty hard
I am quite impressed with the photonis tube to be honest.. For really demanding conditions, i guess the elbit to be superior, but indeed it's not that much of a difference
I’m working law enforcement. I’m currently trying to budget for either another pvs14 and a pano bridge or Jerry 31s with the thermal overlay. From what I’m seeing here the j31 with thermal would pretty much do everything I need it to do. I’m in predominantly urban area so there’s tons of ambient light. Am in the right ball park thinking that ?
Just get some decent tubes. Ideal is the ones with the best gain, keep in mind green tubes have the highest gain, better by thousand to two than WP. Higher gain means they will work better in darker environments. But you should run a filter for urban anyway. And if the power goes down you still have a high gain tube that can cook with low ambient light. Now on the thermal fusion and clip ons. For me, the darker it is the better they work. When there is a lot of light they still work, but it can be much harder to tell from heat signiture to heat signiture. I would go with an iray rh 25 or a infiray dedicated thermal on one side and pvs 14 on the other for urban thermal. The fusion is better for darker environments. I have the infiray overlay Jerry CE5.
@@kevin11288that much was obvious from the get go. That photonis tube was trash and definitely doesn’t perform anything close to the ones I’ve run. Did you leave it in the microwave? Haha. I do run G3 as well so it’s not purchase justification. Something rotten in Denmark here.
I realize you filmed this video a while ago, I’m curious if you still have the specs on the Elbit PH tube used in this video, specifically the halo specs? I’m waiting for my handpicked PH CNV PVS-14 to get here and just want to get a feel what the halo will be like on mine and just for comparison. And thanks again, such a great experience buying any type of night vision for the first time through Custom Night Vision. Kevin is legit!! Aloha 🤙🏽
@@PhotonisDefenseNightVision People on Reddit calling me liar. They said the new 5G tube is just a mythos. And even if real, it's just outdated 90s tech. But the reality is, the new 5G tube is the biggest step for IIT development in a LONG time. Thank you Photonis for doing the only real progress. Extremely important work.
Sorry, but this is not a comparison or test Video. This is useless and seems to be pure advertising. You tested all the tubes in the highest light possible! What is the point? Sorry, I dont get it. This is NIGHT vision. You should do low light comparison. Until the picture goes grainy and very dark. So we can see how long they hold up until we need IR supplementation. I commented a few weeks before and said exactly this! Before you uploaded this video here. And you deleted my comment because I knew you wouldn't do any low light testings. These tubes are not even stressed or working on intensification. They are nearly auto gating because its so bright. This is just 30min of time waste. We all know that every tube looks good in high light. We want to know how they perform in the dark. Even L3 and 4G+ will get grainy, but that's good. So you can see they are working instead of doing nothing like in your video.
The first location had zero illum. If you’re so passionate go make your own video dude. Or I could make one just for you but I’m going to need some cash since I’m the one with all of the equipment. I have done interior low light comparisons on our Instagram. Enjoy the free content.
Don't take costumer feedback very well do ya? Hmmm maybe need to go with a different company. Can't imagine how it would go to have a problem with a purchase and deal with this kind of response in return.
Now they did a more or less low light compression! :) Very Nice Video. I hope next time we get a REAL ULTRA low light comparison. This would be also a good trilogy :D High light testing > Low light testing > ultra low light testing @@guyinthewrinkledwrangler
In location 1 the l3 definitely seemed brighter but almost misty. In location 2 the elbit seemed much more crisp and clear with better contrast. Is this due to the 81 resolution vs the 72 on the l3??
I've heard that filmless tubes in general are more prone to ghosting/tracing from bright light sources. Without an ion barrier film the MCP gets saturated more easily.
The nnvt has potential. I wonder where that vaseline coating like look comes from. Maybe they overcook the glass of the twister. And light leaks into the neighbouring fibres.
We wanted to show an array of environments that people find themselves in. The first location is zero moon illumination, in the woods, about 45 miles outside of Houston.
@@customnightvision next time you should do it in a long dark room with an adjustable light behind a barely cracked door so the lighting condition is the same. Like I said we want to see where the l3 barely makes an image and then what the others look like in the same light. Or the opposite of when the worst tube barely makes an image and what the others look like.
@@randylahey2242the problem here is that the camera (Fx3) will resolve images (unaided by nightvision) differently than your eye will in low light.. I have a lum meter on order and we will use that from now on
@@Tattlebothe understands it. He’s extremely smart. One of the industry’s smartest. If you watch this video with that in mind it’s extremely clear he hates photonis and just comes out and shares this bias while using a trash tube to compare. Anyone who owns multiple tubes knows he’s manipulating the truth using an outlier purposely. It’s pretty vile ethically to take a tube know for amazing urban performance and that absolutely trounces the competition on that front but is also much better in low light than NNVT but not as good as elbit and not nearly as good as L3 in low light; but he again makes it look worse than NNVT. lol. Absolutely cannot be trusted to be honest. The lack of comparable gain definitely makes for poor video as well but the naked eye can easily see that car he notes as not that great. He’s a liar. Which sucks. I’ve purchased tubes from them. I just purchased a Wendy Epic from them this week even. I took a 2600 FOM photonis tube and showed filming inside my home with all the lights on and posted on my account. Zero ghosting. I took them out last night and had my buddy streak my tubes with a cloud defensive edc. No ghosting at all. I just autogated fast AF. Did the same to my L3 tube and it ghosted. Currently black boxing it.
Is it true that to find the gain for photonis that would be comparable to gen 3 tubes that you multiply their gain value by 3.14? Does photonis use a different measurement for their gain than gen 3?
Using US measurements Photonis tubes go up to 80,000 gain for our higher end 4G tubes. ECHO tubes top out around 40,000 however the contrast remains better, so that even with less gain you can still discern more detail than with a higher gain GaAs tube.
It would’ve been helpful to include the price. Is that super high SNR L3 subjectively better than the NNVT, heck yea. Now is it double the price better ($2,200 vs. $4,300) idk, that’s up to the viewer but really puts price vs. performance into context.
All the prices are on our website, as they are subject to change we try to keep pricing out of the videos as we plan to leave these up for a long time.
@@kevin11288 Understandable as evergreen content, but it doesn't hurt to put "at the time of this video, Elbit ranges from $X,XXX to $X,XXX, L3 from $X,XXX to $X,XXX, L3 Supergain from $X,XXX to $X,XXX". or "at the time of this video, L3 roughly runs double the price of Elbit OR NNVT is about a quarter of L3" for context and context is key. If not you might as well compare the pros and cons to a Honda to a Mercedes-Benz or Aero Precision to KAC and not talk about the glaring difference being price difference lol