Well, this may or may not fit in this review section, but here goes anyway. Besides, isn’t a night vision scope a good Jeep accessory?
Here is what I just bought: http://www.bushnell.com/products/oth...n/stealthview/
It totally BLOWS AWAY my generation 1 "green screen" NV monocular. In fact, the old one is for sale on Craigslist right now.Nothing can hide from it, even in pitch darkness. In fact, if it's an animal looking at you, their eyes are a set of headlights as they reflect back that invisible (to organic creatures) light to the scope.
The Stealth View name (I think) refers to the frequency of the IR source. (InfraRed) It's beyond vision range, unlike the older scopes who seemed to have a dull red cigarette ash glow when you looked into one from the 'wrong' end. You won't see it on this scope, unless you're looking at it with another night scope.
The digital type scope is actually an ultra low light camera, (0.001 lux) and you look at a tiny TV screen thru the view finder. One big advantage is a video out for seeing on a TV or recording what you see. And, unlike the old NV scopes and their distorted green circle, the view is sharp from edge to edge. It can also be used in the daytime, very unlike the tube type scopes. And, you can look towards a light (passing car etc.) and still see what's there. The old scopes glare out, and you can't see anything.
There are two IR sources on this scope. A small wide angle flood under the front, and it reaches out to 50' or so, and it's on with the main power. The long finned tube on the side houses a spotlight version that reaches out to several hundred feet. It will wash out anything close, so it's only for seeing something over 75' ~ 100' away. Moonlight is all you need to light up your view, so the IR is for really dark nights.
There are four buttons on top. An on/off for the main power, an on/off for the long range IR, and + & - buttons for the TV screen contrast/gain. One thing I like is the gain stays the same even if it's been off for a while.
I've read other reviews that make me laugh. People complain that there is light from the view finder, and their night vision is toast after using it. Well, DUH! You're looking at a TV screen that pretty much provides a day-lit view, and your other eye can't see anything but blackness, so...? And since it's a monocular, your other eye is still dark adapted. It can be disorienting with one dark eye when you put the scope down, but it recovers soon enough. It's not that much light either, but if you're dark adapted, it can seem bright. There's a Stealth View II that has a color monitor. There isn't going to be any color in darkness under IR for what should be obvious reasons, but people complain about that too.
Other reviewers do talk about the battery issue though, and that's an easy fix. It is like a lot of electronics: it's not really off, but is in sleep mode waiting for a power button push. So, either pull out the battery pack, or plug in a DC power cord to break the circuit, or the batteries go dead in a month or so. I used an old cord and made up a jumper. I just plug in the short ''dead'' cord for storage, and it hangs free (and still attached) when I'm using the scope. And, speaking of batteries, it uses six AA's instead of $12 a pair lithium CR123's. That's a major advantage as they're cheap and can be bought anywhere. While I was making my power cord disable thing, I also made a long power cord for the Jeep so I can save the batteries when using it in or close to the Jeep by plugging into the cigarette lighter socket. It's just a common coaxial DC plug you can get at Radio Shack and the like. (Center positive)
One last thing, a lot of specs (online) say the field of view is 30' at 1,000 yards. Give me a break, that would be only 30' of view width at 3,000 feet, which would be tighter than the beam spread of a laser pointer. (About 1 military mil of angle) The specs should read 30' at 100 yards. It's a misprint that everyone everywhere reprints. It is in fact, about like any other 5x magnification scope/binocular's field of view. It isn't a close up or use-in-a-house NV scope, it's for seeing what's lurking in the tree line 150' away.
Reply With Quote