GNG

There have been a few recent products released in the past year that are very good options for those looking to get into night vision for around $500, most notably the NVG30 and the NVG50. The main disadvantages compared to analog at this price point are more reliance on IR lighting (though with any moonlight or ambient lighting you will still be able to see well, much better than the human eye), there's a very small amount of latency, and we're dealing with rectangular screens compared to circles with analog so the FOV isn't quite as good for navigation but it's getting. The general consensuse seems to be you get around 80% of the performance at about 1/5 the price or less. You can see how they compare by looking at these photos:

$300 is tough but there are a handful of options out there and these would be the top 5 choices. The downside to these devices is that they are very heavily reliant on IR lighting which is not a big deal if its for casual use but it can be seen by other night vision users. NVG40 - this device is about $160 and has better low light no IR performance than many of the more expensive models NVG40 Pro - a color option of the NVG40 with slightly less good no ir performance. Nightfox Prowl - the device has a wide FOV but can be glitchy/ laggy Night Operators Max 2.0 - decent field of view but also very IR light dependant NVG10 - best low light / no ir performance but relatively constricting field of view with some lag If you are willing to step up to about $500 the options get a lot better and are much less IR light reliant. NVG30 - a huge steup up from the devices mentioned previously NVG50 - upgrade to the NVG30 with slightly less latency, more compact build and slightly better performance overall.