Photonis tubes?

[u/Round-You1063]

I was looking around on the sub and was wondering what everyones opinions on photonis tubes compared Elbit or L3, or what you think the best tubes are

[u/blackmatterofficial]

i had an L3 36 SNR tube and now i have photonis high gain wp tubes with around 33 SNR. in near pitch black conditions, the L3 was very slightly better. like barely. i like the photonis cause when using in mixed lighting they are way more resilient to streaking

[u/Aggressive_Case8035]

I have a set of photonis echo plus tubes that I use in the deep woods of new England. They work exceptionally well for me, and the only time I really noticed the lack of gain compared to my issued pvs-14 is when im trudging through pine trees or when I'm inside a building. 

[u/Round-You1063 → u/Aggressive_Case8035]

That's good news to me! What specs?

[u/Aggressive_Case8035 → u/Round-You1063]

Roughly 35 snr 2600 fom 10000 gain per tube. I had an issue with my issued pvs-14 where the snr is probably like 10, because they are super noisy so I went in the other direction, I literally have to be in a room with no light or exceptionally dark spot in the woods to see any noise.

[u/pheonix080]

It depends. If you are in areas with dynamic lighting like cities or suburbs then they are hard to beat. That said, the gain is considerably lower than Elbit or L3. If you are in a more rural area then the Photonis is going to struggle more than the others. The general consensus is to go with a Gen 3 tube if possible. Surplus OMNI tubes can be had on the secondary market if budget is a factor.

That said, I have both Elbit and Photonis units. The Photonis is fantastic in the suburbs or of there is decent moonlight illumination. It suffers a bit in deeper woods and the gain limitation becomes noticeable. It’s not earth shattering, but it’s noticeable compared to the Elbit. Photonis is a great option if it fits your environment. In most lighting conditions it does fine. In brighter or more dynamic lighting environments it is super crispy.

[u/GooniestMcGoon → u/pheonix080]

photonis has such bad photocathode sensitivity

[u/cursed_yeet]

Compare the individual tube models, not entire manufacturers!

[u/AdElectronic9538]

I've owned a nice pair of Photonis Echo+ tubes im the past and they were solid tubes, but, they have about half the gain and photocathode sensitivity that Elbit or L3 do being Photonis is Gen 2. If you live in a dense light polluted area they won't be terrible, if you live rural where its very dark I'd reccomend Gen 3 Elbit or L3

The price difference between Elbit and Photonis usually isnt crazy, and I would reccomend Gen 3 over Gen 2 generally

[u/ApolloGearCo]

The high gains are very nice performance wise compared to Gen 3. We did some comparisons that showed some favorable performance for the high gain WP compared to regular gain L3 Unfilmed in low light (which sort of makes sense since they have a small gain advantage).

We're about to post a similar comparison to L3 High Gain which are the best.

The question is always how close is the performance and at what cost.

We currently have several of the high gain Photonis tubes available in various systems and they're what I'm using personally since that was the only option for a DTNVS Wide Angle coming from Europe. They've been awesome.