This question is probably for Ilya or one of the other experts, but I'm open to input from anyone.
When I was shopping for scopes and just looking through them indoors in a store, or very briefly outdoors, I noticed that sometimes the lower-priced/lower-reputation scopes seemed noticeably "better" than the MUCH higher-priced/higher-reputation ones: Side-by-side, the image in the cheaper scope was obviously brighter -- and not clearer, exactly, but maybe higher-contrast -- than the image in the expensive one. And I'm sure that the extra cost of the pricier scopes wasn't just for durability or ergonomics or whatever, so even though I'm not dismissing the possibility that some cheap scopes might actually be really awesome, I think it's more likely that my naive impression of the cheaper scopes' optical quality was wrong.
I've now bought a couple of scopes that I'm extremely happy with. One's a Razor HD2 4.5-27 and the other's an M5Xi 5-25 -- so they're NOT those cheap ones that looked surprisingly good -- but I still wonder about what I experienced while I was shopping.
What I'm thinking is that maybe the expensive scopes were showing me a really accurate image but the cheaper ones showed me a distorted image that looked a lot better in one obvious dimension but wasn't so great in others -- like, remember the Blue Blocker sunglasses that used to be advertised on late-night TV? They were super cheap, but when you put them on it was like somebody switched on the lights. Really impressive, except that after a while you'd notice that they actually made things LESS clear -- but the high-contrast effect of the yellow lenses initially overwhelmed your perception of subtler features.
There's a similar effect in hi-fi audio systems: A system that's playing a little louder almost always sounds "better". The higher volume can overwhelm your perception of shortcomings in resolution, imaging, naturalness, etc.
So, my questions:
1. Could it be that in some cheap scopes, something as simple as a colored lens -- if not actually a colored lens -- is distorting the image, but in a way that makes it initially seem brighter or clearer than the accurate image produced by more-expensive scopes?
2. How can I, a novice with ordinary vision, judge the optical quality of a scope? I don't mean with any sort of scientific rigor -- but just as I can judge a stereo system by playing particular music or test tracks while listening for certain telltale characteristics, are there simple tests that I can perform while holding a scope for a few minutes in a store? What should I be looking for? I'm sure this has been asked before, so if it's easier to just point me to an old thread or something, that would be great.
When I was shopping for scopes and just looking through them indoors in a store, or very briefly outdoors, I noticed that sometimes the lower-priced/lower-reputation scopes seemed noticeably "better" than the MUCH higher-priced/higher-reputation ones: Side-by-side, the image in the cheaper scope was obviously brighter -- and not clearer, exactly, but maybe higher-contrast -- than the image in the expensive one. And I'm sure that the extra cost of the pricier scopes wasn't just for durability or ergonomics or whatever, so even though I'm not dismissing the possibility that some cheap scopes might actually be really awesome, I think it's more likely that my naive impression of the cheaper scopes' optical quality was wrong.
I've now bought a couple of scopes that I'm extremely happy with. One's a Razor HD2 4.5-27 and the other's an M5Xi 5-25 -- so they're NOT those cheap ones that looked surprisingly good -- but I still wonder about what I experienced while I was shopping.
What I'm thinking is that maybe the expensive scopes were showing me a really accurate image but the cheaper ones showed me a distorted image that looked a lot better in one obvious dimension but wasn't so great in others -- like, remember the Blue Blocker sunglasses that used to be advertised on late-night TV? They were super cheap, but when you put them on it was like somebody switched on the lights. Really impressive, except that after a while you'd notice that they actually made things LESS clear -- but the high-contrast effect of the yellow lenses initially overwhelmed your perception of subtler features.
There's a similar effect in hi-fi audio systems: A system that's playing a little louder almost always sounds "better". The higher volume can overwhelm your perception of shortcomings in resolution, imaging, naturalness, etc.
So, my questions:
1. Could it be that in some cheap scopes, something as simple as a colored lens -- if not actually a colored lens -- is distorting the image, but in a way that makes it initially seem brighter or clearer than the accurate image produced by more-expensive scopes?
2. How can I, a novice with ordinary vision, judge the optical quality of a scope? I don't mean with any sort of scientific rigor -- but just as I can judge a stereo system by playing particular music or test tracks while listening for certain telltale characteristics, are there simple tests that I can perform while holding a scope for a few minutes in a store? What should I be looking for? I'm sure this has been asked before, so if it's easier to just point me to an old thread or something, that would be great.
