I had a chance to test out the new DNT Optics ThermNight TNC225R multi-spectral weapon sight. DNTO purchased the electro-optics branch of Arken that was gaining popularity with their Zulus digital night vision line. DNTO expanded the Zulus line and has added the ThermNight which combined both thermal and digital (day and night) vision together, not as the fusion technology (trying to overlay one image on the other), but as equal options to use individually or side by side. This, along with a laser rangefinder and ballistic calculator has all the makings to be a proverbial dumpster fire and that simply was not the case. I found the little optic worked very well for what it is. The digital channel is 1920 resolution and the thermal channel is 256. I was not enamored with the 256 resolution on the thermal side, but it works alright at typical hunting distances, but the farther out you get and the smaller the critters at distance, the more helpful the digital channel is for identifying targets. There is actually a toggle button where you can flip back and forth between the two which is really cool, or switch back and forth between having one on the big screen and one in the picture-in-picture, which is how I used the unit most of the time and thought that was outstanding.

I mention in the video that this is a more complicated optic to use. Most of complications come from running two scopes at the same time, either concurrently or sequentially, though you can just use one or the other, but why hamstring yourself when you have both? As you are running digital and thermal, you will find that each has advantages and disadvantages and that there are times when one is the better option over the other. Since you have two scopes, you have to have zeroes for each scope (though you can zero one and then adjust the other to the same point), you have two sets of image controls to adjust to optimize images, and two objective lenses that have to be focused. However, as I found, there are happy mediums that are good enough to get the job done in most circumstances without doing a lot of fine tuning.

Aside from an audio cutout while pressing buttons, I found the firmware/electronics to work as designed. There were no lockups or system crashes, no need to reboot because the unit got stuck in some sort of logic loop. The over all system worked well for me.

Here is my review video for those who might be interested in such an optic.