This is my first post here. I joined up just to respond to the OP because I have been in his situation for the last few months. So my story was that a buddy and I anted some inexpensive NV to kill a few problem coyotes. I watched tons of reviews and ended up getting a photon rt 4.5s. This was one of the new models a month ago and I got it on sale for $515. I also picked up a UNV 20IR illuminator. If I had to do it over again I would have bought the TNVC torch pro illuminator because of the modularity. Overall though the setup works pretty good. I can see pretty good out to about 200 yds with the illuminator focused. There are plenty of good reviews on the photons so I won’t go into a lot of detail but I will say a few things. The photon is great for taking shots in an open field. It is easy to zero and it holds zero well. It is not good for short distances inside of 50 yds because the fov is tiny, but it will work if it’s what you have. It is not great for scanning for the same reason, it gets tiring, but once again it will work if it’s what you have. It’s not great for anything if you have a lot of foliage in the area you are hunting because the IR light will reflect back at you from anything between you and your target and keep you from seeing past that obstruction. It is extremely dependent on clear weather conditions for good performance. Don’t let that scare you off. Go out on clear nights, have a good ir illuminator, and position yourself in a clear area. It will then work great. Understand it has a narrow fov and it won’t disappoint you. I would stay away from the 6x unless you are taking shots over 150 yds over 75% of the time, the fov is already narrow enough on the 4.5 to be limiting.
Having said all of that, I have seen some great videos on the pulsar digiscopes. They have more reticles and fuction more like the pulsar thermals in the menus. From the videos I see they seem to work better than the photon without IR light. You can find them for less than $1000 and they have a 3.5x model with a better fov than the photon. I would be very tempted on one of these if I was buying again. The photon is made by pulsar I beleive so I would assume as good or better performance in the digisight.
As far as the ATN. They seem very cool. People either love them or hate them. Most of the criticism seems to be centered around QC, low battery life, spotty performance, and poor customer support. But I don’t own one, this is just what I see. Also keep in mind the 4k models are brand new, I don’t think they are released yet and I haven’t seen a single review on them yet. I saw somewhere ATN isn’t giving them out for reviews until after the release. That would make me nervous.
Also having said all of that. Digital night vision is a gateway drug. I bought mine a little over a month ago and it was cool enough for me to suddenly be super ok with dropping $5k on my new pulsar thermal that will be in my hands tomorrow. So be warned. If you only want to buy once, you might want to look at a thermal from the get go. You are hunting midwest so I’m assuming you will be taking longer shots? If that were my case I’d look at the trail xq50, and the new flir pts 536, or 736. It’s all about how much you want to spend. Also if you don’t know, you can rent a lot of this equipment online to try befor you buy. Just an fyi. Hope that helps.
