Night Vision Advice re Sionyx Aurora Night Vision Camera

[NewbieNewbie99]

Greetings to all the experienced members here.

As a total newbie I was hoping to ask for some advice from all the experienced members here.

Does anyone perhaps know if the Sionyx Aurora has a zoom that will function maximally whilst driving in the bush? In other if it is on 3 x digital zoom while head mounted to a helmut while driving, then will it simply autofocus whilst maintaining the 3 x zoom? Or will it go back to 1xzoom. I know Samsung mobile phones go back to 1 x zoom whilst driving (it cant maintain the higher zoom whilst driving).

My understanding is that if people are using the Sionyx Aurora to navigate at night while on a boat, then it should have an autofocus? Is this correct?

May I ask one final question to the experienced members here. Regarding the 3x zoom of the Sionyx Aurora, whilst it is head mouted on a helmut whilst driving in the bush, does this 3 x zoom really make much of a difference in terms of bringing objects nearer during the day, compared to one's normal vision or does this 3 x digital zoom make no difference at all?

Would you estimate one could see 500 yards clearer on 3 x zoom when driving in the bush during the day or would you say the zoom is insignificant?

Many thanks to everyone and sincerely sorry for the long post (I just need to make sure about the above before I order it).

Thank you again.

Best regards

James

 

[Adam B]

I bought one to try out, they are a neat toy but I don’t feel that they will work well for real applications like you are looking to use it for.

 

[NewbieNewbie99]

Thank you for this Adam. They just so much more affordable. I wonder if anyone else can let me know. In fact I just read now that as a general rule, night vision devices do not auto focus, but then how do people drive with them or sit in a moving vehicle and see clearly with a monocular night vision device if it does not autofocus?
Thank you again to everyone
Regards
James

 

[Hoyter87]

Driving with a monocular NV is difficult because you lack depth perception with only one eye. There are visual cues our brains perceive with monocular vision that provide some clues to depth perception but it has no comparison to binocular vision. We determine depth perception principally off of the horizontal distance between our eyes creating different angles to view the same image. Our brains then triangulate.

I'm unfamiliar with any autofocusing NOD. When I drive with my PVS14 I focus it about as far as I'm going to be focused on the field ahead of me and leave it. Your brain understands the closer imagery is out of focus and tends to concentrate on the imagery that is in focus.

I'd save your money and buy a gen 2 PVS7 and a good IR illuminator before I'd buy a sionyx but this is only my opinion. You can get $300 NV monocles that have the same image quality as a sionyx.

 

[Morgan3]

New to night vision myself, but traditional non-digital night vision doesn’t auto focus. You typically focus at distance for baseline and everything except for closeup is pretty well focused. You can drive and see everything outside the vehicle fine but your instrument panel wouldn’t be in focus.
I personally haven’t used a sionyx but I understand they have a slight lag. Meaning what you are seeing isn’t what is happening but what already happened. That would be my primary concern driving, considering the faster you were driving the more difficult that might be to deal with.
Personally, I wouldn’t go that route unless I had tried it and was doable, and I definitely agree on trying to get the best PVS14
you can afford.

Most importantly, I may be off base, but the thought of driving on 3x sounds like a great way to end up dead.

 

[Downtown]

When using two PVS-14s as binoculars, it's possible to focus one far and one near. The brain is an amazing thing.

 

[Cat Spring]

The lag time on the Sionyx is huge and I personally would not use one for driving.

 

[sprad05]

As another said, thats one of the biggest hang ups for me is the latency.