Night Vision How much do you care about FOV?

[WTFDUDE]

A hunting buddy of mine is trying to convince me hard to get a PVS-14 with him for use. I've never cared much for these as I have thermal/nightvision riflescopes and handheld thermal monocles for spotting and never had any issues. I have been reading information but rarely hear people talk about field of view at all. Given the human eye sees about 180 degrees field of view, alot of these 40 degree PVS-14s seem very restricted and I have heard unless your on flat ground, walking can be difficult.

This leads me to a preference of a Gen 3, 51 degree field of view with a willingness to sacrifice some range for better FOV. He seems to want max distance and 40 degree FOV is fine. Anyone have any opinions or experience on these? Another issue is looking for a Gen 3, white phosphor 51 FOV; to me it appears choices are limited and not wanting to spend more than $4,000 on the monocle.

 

[WTFDUDE]

Man if your just using it for navigating /want something to walk with... I have some WP pvs7s for $2300 that would serve you great. Won’t break the bank either.

interested pm sent

 

[Huskydriver]

What are you planning on doing at night?

 

[WTFDUDE]

What are you planning on doing at night?

Mainly hunting in some pretty low light situations in wooded area. Rarely is there a need or possibility to see beyond 200 yards.

 

[Aescobar17]

FOV is almost always more important to me than distance, and I live in West TX where it’s wide open.

 

[UpSideDown]

I’m not a night vision dude but this is my understanding. Night vision is or navigating. Thermal is for seeing critters but not really navigating. If I was hunting at night I’d be all about thermal. NV would be good if I needed to hike in/out at night but I wouldn’t care too much a out FOV because I wouldn’t be hunting with the NV when thermal is so much more effective.

 

[WTFDUDE]

FOV is almost always more important to me than distance, and I live in West TX where it’s wide open.

curious what if anything do you use?

 

[WTFDUDE]

I’m not a night vision dude but this is my understanding. Night vision is or navigating. Thermal is for seeing critters but not really navigating. If I was hunting at night I’d be all about thermal. NV would be good if I needed to hike in/out at night but I wouldn’t care too much a out FOV because I wouldn’t be hunting with the NV when thermal is so much more effective.

From my riflescope and quick spotter perspective my experience tends to agree barring no fog for thermal. The utility of wearing night vision goggles I just dont see for my usage. I may be wrong, part of reason I brought it up!

 

[RyanScott]

The 51* setups get fish eye.

Look into duals for rough terrain at night. True duals for binocular vision.

 

[deersniper]

The 51* setups get fish eye.

Look into duals for rough terrain at night. True duals for binocular vision.

So duals like a 14 plus a nvision skeet?

 

[RyanScott]

Probably dual night vision. Lots of people struggle with thermal and I2 competing for bandwidth in their brain.

 

[TheHorta]

I drive my Ranger at 50MPH nearly every night with dual thermals on my melon. That’s only 24-degrees FOV, and it works just fine. Sure, I have to flip the top half of the windscreen down, but I promise you I see — conservatively — 1,000% more with dual thermals than anyone in the world will with 3000 FOM GPNVGs.

If I’m taking NV carbine classes, or schwacking ISIS bad guys in the GWOT, or clearing structures on a SWAT team, or driving actual roadgoing vehicles with fixed windscreens, sure — NV is king.

If I’m looking for critters out and about in the Wild Kingdom, I’ll never go back to straight i2 NODs. Never.