Question - Recommened night vision monocular?

[Defaulter]

There seems to be a bunch of options, I'm looking for one that has a good field of view, not just a small circle/square in front of me, so that it might well be used to walk around in te dark. And not just observation.

Budget is tight, so I'm looking to spend under £200, the less the better. Thanks :]

 

[Oxygen Thief]

I don't know what model I had, but was pleased with the Yukon monoculars...

Night Vision Monocular

 

[Adders]

Bubblehead had one of the Aldi £60/80 ones and as much fun as it was to play with, it didn't really serve much practical use within exploring if that's what you're looking to acquire it for.

 

[Oxygen Thief]

We used ours at West Park to get past the IR cameras and laser grid, worked perfectly.

 

[Dan1701]

Clarke Tools does a decent one, the CNV60 mini night scope. Despite what the description implies, this isn't an image intensifier tube but an infrared sensitive CCD camera, so it isnt damaged if you use it in daylight. It is rather handy for spotting the IR illuminators of CCTV cameras, if that's what you want to do. See here: Binoculars

If you do use it, do note that when switched on a strong IR light shines out of the top; it takes several clicks to turn it off, which you'll want to do it you're scoping out IR lights from a distance (it is very, very conspicuous on a CCTV camera).

 

[sageman]

1 thing to note it takes a full hour for your eyes to fully ajust to the dark and then any light ie a phone will ruin it for another hour i had no trouble ramberling around fleet wood a 3 in the mornin using just my eyes and the moon

 

[Spider00]

The problem with a monocular sight is you only have one point of view from one eye so you have no depth perception at all.

With the lack of colour info and depth perception, peaks and troughs on the ground look the same. Using it for urban exploring would be quite risky I think unless you carry with you a huge stack of infrared cylumes.

 

[ManBearPig]

If you're looking for a cheap hack, your phone's camera should easily spot bright IR sources. In fact, the CCDs in them are sensitive enough to IR that a very bright IR LED lamp will reflect back off a room in the dark, and make the picture bright enough to see on your phone's camera.

Of course, it won't be anywhere near as good as a real IR scope.

 

[Nobby]

Wouldn't waste your money, commercially available night vision sights/goggles/scopes etc are generally quite poor, put it toward a new camera body or lens.

 

[Stephen_wolf]

I had a Yukon monocular and the head mount but I found trying to walk anywhere with it on more trouble than it was worth, but spotting IR cameras seems like a good use for scouting.