Thread: Does anybody here know anything about night vision goggles?

So I recently bought property and it's within walking distance to a huge beautiful national park reserve up in the mountains/hills. It's the kind of forest with very old, very tall, and very well established vegetation and pathways through the trees (see some representative photos below).

The forest is pitch black at night, the kind of darkness where I wouldn't even be able to see my hand in front of my face. I was thinking it would be amazing if I could get a pair of night vision goggles and walk through the forest with those on. I'm pretty sure I would see a lot of not-often-seen nocturnal creatures wandering around.

So does anybody know much about these goggles? Which brands are good, how much to spend? I've seen relatively cheap ones on eBay but I assume there's something about them aren't as good as the expensive ones, but on the other hand for my purposes do I need the really expensive ones? It's not like I'm going on a night mission behind enemy lines to hunt down some hostages guerilla style at a military camp in the jungle.

Can't help you with the goggles, but that's a beautiful forest, well photographed!

Thanks! All the photos are taken either in the national reserve or very close by on private property so it's the same fauna.

flora

The bears that will eat you if you go there at night are fauna ...

How great is having something so beautiful so close! Enjoy!

oops yes forgot to say ... lovely light & well captured by you James.

Just watch out for the bears is all I'm saying

hah.... thanks pdh but it'll be fine, the koala bears are relatively docile creatures. ;)

I used NVGs for years and years (4949 and 6Cs mostly, so I'm showing my age). On their own they magnify ambient light. You can make or buy a flashlight that will work with NVGs fairly easily, that would help on your night walks.

Every time you turn on a set of NVGs they are one step closer to kicking the bucket (honey combing the image or just not working anymore) so whatever pair you buy realize they only work for so long. Because of that, I would go cheap and get new ones when the time comes.

Also realize you have to focus them for your target distance. If you focus from 15 feet on out you can't see anything at hand or foot level. If you have dual tubes you can focus one close and one far but that makes some people dizzy. Also because you have a bright screen in your eyes, your natural night vision is shot when you take them off.

Good luck and have fun. If you do get some, turn the lights off in the house and hit any button on your tv remote....it's pretty cool :)

Thanks very much tdp, that's the sort of information I was looking for. I googled around but hadn't come across this, or I didn't fully understand some of the information that you've described clearly here. I am feeling a little better about trying some of the cheaper eBay ones first.