Custom Night Vision | L3 vs NNVT vs Elbit vs Photonis
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- We decided that a comparison video between tube manufacturers was good for the internet. We tested 4 samples from L3 Harris, Elbit Systems, Photnois and NNVT. We compared them in 3 separate lighting and environmental conditions to show just how different these tubes can perform. Tube specs are listed in the video.
www.customnightvision.com
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0:00 - Intro
0:55 - Preface
7:34 - Location 1
11:30 - Location 2
19:43 - Location 3
24:55 - Final Thoughts
Great video! No bs, just footage. Personally would choose elbits just based off what I saw
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.
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!
Yeah man absolutely.
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.
Super awesome video! Appreciate the straight video with multiple locations. As an owner of photonis this was super informative.
Very good work on the comparison. Lots of detail. Love it.
Glad you liked it!
Awesome and educational video guys!
great comparison and no bullshit talk. I appreciate that, keep rolling stuff like this.
1431 mk2 with elbit tubes is what I've been saving for, Almost there
Wait for the LLI mh-1 housing
That’s what I have and now I’m upgrading to L3 DTNVS
It’s a disease borther
@@daytonrhoten1135it'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).
@@legendsneverdie25 no manual gain tho, right?
@@AP-pj4init has manual gain
Thanks for the video, just ordered a set of Katana-Rs with elbits from ya yesterday. Will test them out in Alaska.
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!
Great video! Keep em coming
Got mine the other day, blown away by the quality and the shipping was fast thanks.
Great to hear!
Thank you for your business.
These comparrisions are super helpful as I bully the remainder of my group to buy units
Im in the market in the near future, so this is extremely helpful
go for the jerry 14
Thanks for such amaizing comparative
Thanks for watching.
Awesome video.
Bro, this helps a ton in making an expensive informed decision! Thanks
Thanks for watching
The side by side views really show the differences between the tubes. Pretty dramatic in fact but that shows the difference in tech and pricing.
For the fact that NNVT tubes are half the price, its kind of impressive how effective they are.
yeah
🙏❤️ Love from Scotland ❤️🙏
Good video!
Great work
Thank you!
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.
Appreciate your content! 41+ L3 SNR!? 36+ Elbit SNR? Would appreciate you guys offering more tubes for sale like that!
36 snr elbits aren't rare.
@@toomanynamestaken I check their site almost daily. I can't remember the last time I saw an elbit tube over 36 SNR on their site.
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.
@customnightvision Oh, that sounds great! Didn't know that.
Good video.i got a photonis echo wp really like it. You can tell it's dimmer then elbit or L3,but still very nice quality.
They are high quality. Photonis definitely has a place in the product matrix.
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.
Very nice!
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.
👀
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.
@@PhotonisDefenseNightVisionno you come to Texas. Lol
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.
@@PhotonisDefenseNightVision how do I contact you and how do I know you’re not going to jump me when I get there.
🇺🇸🔥
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.
The ghosting will vary from tube to tube and is not manufacture specific.
Elbit works great
41.1 SNR.....holy shit!
👍
I gotta say that Elbit takes the cake when it comes to shadows/contrast 🖤
They make a great tube.
Agree
How long does the “ghosting” from the street lights (or any other bright lights) last for? Is it permanent? Does it damage the tube?
It fades after a few seconds. Really dark ones take a few minutes.
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.
just got mine NNVT4 last week, can't complain any for the price point.
Yes but never buy NVT-4 tubes. Only NVT-5 or NVT-7
@@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.
@@aesthetic8780 How do NVT-7 tubes perform? For some reason it is impossible to get information or comparisons of these tubes!
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??
Great video!. When will I be able to order a Argus or Nocturn quad tube unit from you guys?
Not sure man.
Can I add the matbock tarsier eclipse to the RPO?
Yes I believe so.
Really hard to figure out what tubes to get prior to watching. Now that I’ve watched it I am even more lost. 😂😂.
We have a lot of cost-effective equipment，all parameters are very detailed
This comparison just makes we want to get the L3 supergain binos. Can you guys help me pick a housings?
Absolutely! Feel free to give us a call or reach out to us on our social media platforms.
That image burn in at 12:00 was nasty
it went away quickly.
Did you have all the tubes on full gain?
Yes
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?
I’m not sure, photonis may be able to answer that.
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.
@@PhotonisDefenseNightVision that’s what I had thought, thanks for confirming that! I absolutely love my echos
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!!!
None of them have a ten year warranty and all of them are regulated by ITAR.
But thank you.
@@kevin11288 people like you are a freaking JOKE! Spewing garbage and basically calling me a LIAR without even knowing WTF YOUR talking about.
@@kevin11288 @CUNextTuesday
Saw the whataburger. Instant like
Helllll yes brother
@@kevin11288 whataburger for lifee
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 🤙🏽
If its not listed in the annotations then I dont think so.
@@customnightvision no worries
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
It's been said Elbits are way better on video and photo over L3 but in person the L3s are better.
@@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
@@Kaotix_music Nnvt is a product for people who would have never bought nightvision otherwise.
@@kevin11288 clearly and you’re bias makes you not trustworthy for honest reviews. Sadly.
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 ?
Man it’s hard for me to tell you which way to go. I’m pretty bias towards gen 3
If you bridge the 14’s go with the Arc Panning Bridge. You can pan on the fly if you want more FOV.
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.
In thinking this through, and knowing and having seen MANY various tubes, its clear he positioned a trash Photonis tube into this video. GROSS dude.
Surprised at the amount of tracing on the photonis tube. I thought these gen 2 tubes were much less susceptible to tracing than gen 3?
Right? Seems like a lot of the things said about photonis tubes are… misleading
@RunningWithSauce the guy you replied to is the guy in the video, knucklehead.
I haven’t ever experienced tracing with my photonis tubes but I also haven’t stared at a bright light for more than like 10 seconds or so
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.
In our experience tracing seems to be much more common with elbit tubes than L3
All GaAs tubes use an ion barrier film, even those that are “filmless.”
No do it agian in the woods
I heard that Photonis/NNVT has a different gain calculation formula than the US. Shouldn't Photonis' 9700Gain be 30400 in the US?
Anyway, this comparison video is really cool!!
That’s correct. Not sure why they chose to mislead. He seemed bitter at their availability.
Same goes for EBI. Idk the actual formula but multiplying Photonis' EBI by 10x is a quick rule of thumb.
@@RunningWithSauce they didn't t even understand it when the video was made. Very worrying for a professional builder.
@@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 still true that gen 2 has half the tube life of gen 3??
No, it's not.
No sir.
The newest Photonis tubes has lifetime approaching 20,000 hours.
@@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.
@@PhotonisDefenseNightVision Can you confirm that the new 5G tube has up to 20.000 FOM? Or did I misunderstood something?
which NNVT tube did you use? 4 or 5?
definitely NVT-4
@@megumiaki2244 they compared a dog's tube equivalent to sub-echo commercial grade when 2300+ FOM NNVT tubes, NVT6 and 7, are available.
@@megumiaki2244 This is what annoys me, they should have used an NVT-7 tube since it would have comparable specs to the rest.
@@bohemondi8348 well, they don't have nvt-7 in stock I guess. From what nvt spec sheets claim, nvt-7 should be comparable to 4g echo tubes.
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
@@kevin11288 Yo, all that being said still a great video.
@@Aspirate69 thanks. I’m comparing what we offer, not just random things lol.
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.
The box said preheat to 450 and bake for 11-13 minutes, remove from oven and allow to rest on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then "Enjoy".
3 well lit areas for a high end night vision comparison? lol what? we want to see where these tubes struggle to barely make an image
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
🙋 "promo sm"
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.
@@guyinthewrinkledwranglermy response would be different if money has been exchanged but when people consume free content and complain about it ..
@@kevin11288 oh. Perhaps there is more to the situation of which I'm not apprised.
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
I appreciate the great video! Thank you. I don't appreciate the skinny jeans though! LOL.