In the world of night vision lens quality is one of the most critical factors to consider affecting overall performance of a night vision device (NVD). Whether you are assembling your own NVD, upgrading your build or trying to decide what lens options to pick when you're buying a new NVD, choosing between MIL-SPEC or commercial grade alternatives can build or break your setup. Two commonly discussed options at the same budget are the SRCKSY and Norinco MILSPEC lenses. While the price difference between these two is pretty small, the performance difference is huge.
We tried both on these lenses and the difference we saw are remarkable. Having said this, here is our review on these two options.
We compared these lenses in the same environment through multiple tests such as: image clarity and sharpness, edge to edge clarity and tilt test. For this review we chose to combine the Norinco lenses with a NVT-7 FOM2000 (RES 68, SNR 30) tube and for the SRCKSY lenses we chose a NNVT Gen 3 with FOM2300 (RES 68 SNR34).
For the image clarity and sharpness, the results speak for themselves. The device equiped with Norinco lenses provides a much sharper image than the other. Clarity is also on the rise, since you can see much more details in the distance with the Norinco lenses even though the NVT-7 doesn't have better specs than the gen 3. Another thing to add here is how much light is transmitted through the Norincos. Even though the NVT-7 has a smaller gain the image that comes out of the NVT-7 is much brighter.
Regarding the edge to edge clarity, Norinco wins again. This is very helpful because you can see objects with great details without putting them in the center of the image.
Tilting is one of the most important things regarding lens assemblies. There are instances where you can not allign your eye perfectly with the eyepiece lens, thus good lenses will offer a good image no matter the tilt angle of the device compared to your eye's vision axis.
When the SRCKSY lenses were used we noticed that if you tilt/pan the monocular just a little bit the image becomes unclear. However, this is not the case for the Norinco lenses. You can tilt the device to the maximum and you will be able to see the object in focus clearly. This happens because the geometry of the eyepiece lens. While the SRCKSY eyepiece is flat, Norinco offers converging eypiece lenses, which gets the job done much better than its counterpart.
These tests were documented in the video below.