jwramp
Bird's Eye View
Have posted in the FB Gear/Equipment group, but figured it'd be good to organize things here in a post for reference and future development.
First, a few shout-outs. After having Ryan from Nightlong Industries on the AR-15 Podcast a while back, I had him put together a set of Mod-3 NVGs for me. I had a PVS-14 from TNVC for a few years and absolutely loved it, but after having borrowed a buddy's -14 for a few months and running them together in a binocular setup, I just had to go duals. I learned an absolute ton from Ryan and he was great through the whole purchase process to put together exactly what I was looking for at a very reasonable price. With such a big purchase it's important to feel comfortable about what you're getting, and Ryan was great about PMing back and forth to answer all my questions. All the footage is shot through one tube or the other on this bino setup. The Mod-3 lets you pop either tube off and run them independently with their own battery packs, which allow for handheld filming through iPhones, DSLRs, etc. Which leads me to...
Aaron from Night Combat Solutions provided me with an FPRS unit. The First Person Recording System slides onto the ocular end of a PVS-14 -type optic and records video to a micro-SD card. It hangs out in front of the eyepiece but is so close to your eye after some time you tend to forget it's there. Aaron was seeking some feedback and extra footage from the system and I was happy to give it a run. I'm very excited for future developments that Aaron's been working on implementing.
___________
On to the main point here. I've ran into very few videos filmed through NVGs showing the user's perspective of various optics, red dots, flashlights and lasers. As a newer user, I'm by no means here to discuss the merits of different devices and how they might be implemented in your work or play. I'm just able to film things as I get my hands on them and happy to do so on request. The FPRS makes it very easy to capture the exact same perspective as the user is seeing. While TNVC does a fantastic job in their product example photos, some of these things are nice to have in video form if you're willing to sit through my rambling.
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This first video was taken indoors with very little ambient lighting. I ran through the following sighting systems to show how they look through the NVGs and discuss a few of the issues you might run in to (focus, inability to see through tubes, minimal light transmission through the optics).
Things I'd like to try to capture in the future include taking the variable optics out to a range in a few different lighting conditions to see what sort of transmission is possible through them, and play around with focus a bit more. It may be possible to change the ocular focus and parallax to a point where transitioning from static, unassisted observation to behind-the-scope would be a little smoother.
___________
This second video was recorded as I compared a new LED IR illuminator to a few devices I already had on hand. My typical helmet setup involves a Surefire X300v mounted on one side to use for additional illumination. I've found built-in illuminators on NVGs to be very unhelpful in most situations. The Vampire series of heads and dedicated lights let you switch between visible and IR energy by twisting the bezel. By heading outside to an area with obstructions at various distances, I hoped to compare beam patterns at both up-close and far-out ranges. Around the bend of the road with the reflective signs is approximately 250m. Here's a list of the illuminators shown and their relative prices and energy levels:
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One final piece I'll attach to show an alternative method of filming, by just holding an iPhone up to a single PVS-14. Frame rate capture is quite a bit smoother with the high-quality video modes available on the phone, and resolution is fairly similar. What you miss is the absolute pain-in-the-ass it is to either hold the phone up in perfectly the right place, or the use of a fancy adapter to get the camera lined up right behind the NVG. In either case it's still a handheld solution, so occupies you to be the camera operator rather than participant. When using something like the FPRS, Wilcox MHRS or GoPro prism adapter, you can forget about the filming aspect and just use the NVGs like normal. This is all footage from Don's TNVC Nightfighter 1 course held in Alliance this year:
___________
As I mentioned before, I'm happy to take suggestions for future videos if you have something you'd like to see. Another one I need to upload from the illuminator comparison is a short clip showing an RMRed pistol and how the image through the RMR glass is tough to see without throwing some additional IR energy downrange.
First, a few shout-outs. After having Ryan from Nightlong Industries on the AR-15 Podcast a while back, I had him put together a set of Mod-3 NVGs for me. I had a PVS-14 from TNVC for a few years and absolutely loved it, but after having borrowed a buddy's -14 for a few months and running them together in a binocular setup, I just had to go duals. I learned an absolute ton from Ryan and he was great through the whole purchase process to put together exactly what I was looking for at a very reasonable price. With such a big purchase it's important to feel comfortable about what you're getting, and Ryan was great about PMing back and forth to answer all my questions. All the footage is shot through one tube or the other on this bino setup. The Mod-3 lets you pop either tube off and run them independently with their own battery packs, which allow for handheld filming through iPhones, DSLRs, etc. Which leads me to...
Aaron from Night Combat Solutions provided me with an FPRS unit. The First Person Recording System slides onto the ocular end of a PVS-14 -type optic and records video to a micro-SD card. It hangs out in front of the eyepiece but is so close to your eye after some time you tend to forget it's there. Aaron was seeking some feedback and extra footage from the system and I was happy to give it a run. I'm very excited for future developments that Aaron's been working on implementing.
___________
On to the main point here. I've ran into very few videos filmed through NVGs showing the user's perspective of various optics, red dots, flashlights and lasers. As a newer user, I'm by no means here to discuss the merits of different devices and how they might be implemented in your work or play. I'm just able to film things as I get my hands on them and happy to do so on request. The FPRS makes it very easy to capture the exact same perspective as the user is seeing. While TNVC does a fantastic job in their product example photos, some of these things are nice to have in video form if you're willing to sit through my rambling.
___________
This first video was taken indoors with very little ambient lighting. I ran through the following sighting systems to show how they look through the NVGs and discuss a few of the issues you might run in to (focus, inability to see through tubes, minimal light transmission through the optics).
- Glock 17 w/ Trijicon night sights and Trijicon RMR RM07 red dot
- Glock 19 w/ front Trijicon night sight and black rear
- Glock 19 w/ fiber optic front and black rear sight
- FNX 45 w/ Trijicon yellow tritium RMR w/ night sights
- AR-15 w/ Trijicon MRO red dot
- AR-15 w/ Aimpint Micro T-1 red dot
- AR-15 w/ DBAL-I2 laser pointer
- M16A1 w/ iron sights
- SCAR-17 w/ SWFA 1-6x FFP scope
- Rem 700 w/ Vortex Razor HD 5-20x scope
Things I'd like to try to capture in the future include taking the variable optics out to a range in a few different lighting conditions to see what sort of transmission is possible through them, and play around with focus a bit more. It may be possible to change the ocular focus and parallax to a point where transitioning from static, unassisted observation to behind-the-scope would be a little smoother.
___________
This second video was recorded as I compared a new LED IR illuminator to a few devices I already had on hand. My typical helmet setup involves a Surefire X300v mounted on one side to use for additional illumination. I've found built-in illuminators on NVGs to be very unhelpful in most situations. The Vampire series of heads and dedicated lights let you switch between visible and IR energy by twisting the bezel. By heading outside to an area with obstructions at various distances, I hoped to compare beam patterns at both up-close and far-out ranges. Around the bend of the road with the reflective signs is approximately 250m. Here's a list of the illuminators shown and their relative prices and energy levels:
- Inforce WMLx White/IR (700L+400mW, $165)
- Surefire Scout w/ KM2 Head (150L+120mW, approx $200+$250 for body)
- Surefire X300v (350L+120mW, $300)
- Wilcox Raptar Lite ES (0.7mW IR Laser, $900)
- PEQ-14 Designator (25mW IR Laser, $NA)
___________
One final piece I'll attach to show an alternative method of filming, by just holding an iPhone up to a single PVS-14. Frame rate capture is quite a bit smoother with the high-quality video modes available on the phone, and resolution is fairly similar. What you miss is the absolute pain-in-the-ass it is to either hold the phone up in perfectly the right place, or the use of a fancy adapter to get the camera lined up right behind the NVG. In either case it's still a handheld solution, so occupies you to be the camera operator rather than participant. When using something like the FPRS, Wilcox MHRS or GoPro prism adapter, you can forget about the filming aspect and just use the NVGs like normal. This is all footage from Don's TNVC Nightfighter 1 course held in Alliance this year:
___________
As I mentioned before, I'm happy to take suggestions for future videos if you have something you'd like to see. Another one I need to upload from the illuminator comparison is a short clip showing an RMRed pistol and how the image through the RMR glass is tough to see without throwing some additional IR energy downrange.