Been a while since I wandered here to scribble my thoughts about a product. Every week some widget Kickstarter company reaches out to bait for a review, and frankly that kind of content has never interested me.
That said, pretending to be be a super spy does peak my curiosity, so here we are.
I shall review night vision bino’s as if I am qualified to do so…
As a clear disclaimer, this is review is under “good” conditions with me testing out the tech.
By no means have performed any tangible real world analysis as though I was a hunter/tactical operator, so take my opinion with a large bucket of salt – because this is my first experience with this kind of tech.
Admittedly, it took all of 10 minutes of playing with this bad boy before the coolness of night vision overrode any and all practical concerns, make of that what you will…
At the end of the day folks, like all shinies, the coolness factor is realistically going to be the defining angle for someone like me. I don’t review tent pegs for a reason.
My only prior experience with binoculars are the chunky 8×10 types.
My general feeling on them and tools like that is if you have a use for them, they are super useful, but otherwise – they just chill in the closet.
I would say the same thing about the CNVPRO. I suspect groundkeepers/hunters and people with significant amount of property would definitely like having these around, but this review is gonna be more about the tech and how they feel, and I will leave practicalities for you to ponder for yourselves, as the case use is very situational to the individual.
One last disclaimer – the photos of the product have pretty colour and lighting edits done in Photoshop by the girl. The photos by the product have not been beautified or adultered in any way – except for resizing for web of course – so that you can see what the shots look like straight out of the camera on this badboy and can decide for yourself if it’s up your alley.
One last last disclaimer – I really fucked up taking the pics, im sure with some practice I would get better results, but yanno, I had to share before I really mastered this thing because, too cool not to…
Anyway, with the disclaimers out of the way, lets dig into these fancy night vision binoculars and why they are fucking cool.
Size, feel, clicks…
First, they are heavy. A smidgen less than 1kg/1 bag of sugar.
I think in the hand, they definitely have a chunky-monkey build quality, which feels like it’s a good thing, but I don’t really know, since this is based on my gut associating things that are too lightweight with them being cheap & low quality, meaning heavy = “good.”
The ports have that silicon waterproof cover.
I honestly don’t understand how these work as well as they do, but from personal experience; my Olympus camera has a similar design, fell into a stream, and was completely ok.
I shan’t be leaving these outside, but I am pretty confident that they would survive unscathed.
Likewise, with general resilience to knocks/bumps/drops.
I won’t say they are bombproof, but they definitely fall more in the “outdoor/tactical” side of things, rather than consumer tech category.
Which makes sense because.. that’s what they are.
Button layout is – well… choices were made..
Zoom buttons backwards (+ on left, – on right??!) makes no sense.
But other than that the whole thing is intuitive. I didn’t read the manual and there really is no need to.
On another positive note, the buttons are clicky rather than smooshy – which I really like.
Every action feels very deliberate in the right sort of way, and I don’t think you can accidently turn them on or anything like that, which is a very big plus, since these are obviously battery powered (18 hrs of battery life! Impressive).
Finally, it has USB-C charging (yay!) and some kind of WI-FI app control thing? No, I didn’t try it. Nor do I care to try it, to be honest.
Optics & Real World Performance
Alright, Cigman.
Buddy.
We need to talk…
The digital zoom is awful.
I think binoculars are a stretch. At 8x, the definition and stability is quasi-unusable.
I think in an open field it might be pretty good. Perhaps if scouting for white tail. But in my basic tests, it can be summed up as a pixelated crime against humanity.
2-3x max at night is usable, anything beyond that is not viable.
In daylight? Sure, 8x is passable… ish.
At night? Nope. Hard pass.
And these are night vision bino’s, so I think being critical of that aspect of their performance is valid.
Beyond that, the sensor itself is the fancy Sony Starvis 2.
I don’t know much about sensor quality/rankings, but a quick Google search tells me it’s a great option and almost unheard of in budget NV binos.
I can attest that in low light it’s beyond crazy impressive.
As for what you actually look through, it’s a sizable 4″ screen.
Looks really crisp and bright – I don’t think there is much to complain about.
The manual focus is surprisingly good. Very controllable with solid resistance.
Took me a while to get used to it, but since it’s the only thing with granular control, it’s pretty easy to master.
Alright, the basic glib has been scribbled, so let’s discuss the only thing that really matters.
When I first tried out the night vision mode, I legit giggled and ran to get the girl so she could test it out herself.
Guys. It’s fucking cool.
In complete darkness, you can slap on the infrared light to max, and even pretty far away you see absolutely everything.
The throw is absolutely ridiculous and I didn’t expect how viable it was.
Still feels incredible to me that regular consumers can now own affordable real, legit, night vision devices.
Do you remember the TV show “The Unit”?
In one episode a night vision scope gets traded for a fucking boat ride across borders. And now we have this tech. As regular people. Unreal.
Speaking of the infrared beam of doom, I for some inexplicable reason thought that with the infrared spotlight on, I could be fully stealth mode and (not sure why I thought that) I was partially correct.
The beam is invisible but the actual emitter is very much not and I was very aware of how creepy I looked walking around my neighbourhood scanning away at night.
Something to bare in mind lest people get the wrong idea. ;)
All in all, a wonderful toy that I do not regret adding to my collection.
Will it get much use? Probably yes, when company comes over and I can show it off.
Will it get much practical use? You know the answer, but I’m not sure I need to factor this into the equation.
That is all folks.
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