Various Types of Optical Glass Explained

[boscoebrea]

The bottom line is that great glass is great because the components used are the best, and care is taken when putting all of this together.
I do research so I can do my best for my money.I have excellent optics that were a lot less than the best, yet I get very close to the best. Pentax's top-of-the-line spotting scopes and binoculars are great for the price. Pentax and Burris are together in some rifle scopes.
One other tip is to read "birdwatcher sites," where you can learn about optics.

 

[steve123]

The bottom line is that great glass is great because the components used are the best, and care is taken when putting all of this together.
I do research so I can do my best for my money.I have excellent optics that were a lot less than the best, yet I get very close to the best. Pentax's top-of-the-line spotting scopes and binoculars are great for the price. Pentax and Burris are together in some rifle scopes.
One other tip is to read "birdwatcher sites," where you can learn about optics.

I had a Pentax PF100 spotter once. Man what great IQ, but a huge scope! The problem was I didn't know much about tripods so that spotter on a Manfroto 055 was way to heavy for it and the system oscillated like crazy if there was any wind. Wish I had kept it and bought a appropriate tripod.

 

[boscoebrea]

I have 80mm and you are right; I also have the little 65mm scope; it is great.

Here is a perspective

 

[bigHUN]

My wife works in optics, I am talking about the very higher end in optics.
Along the years I learned from stories about the compounds the glass is made of....pretty much start with mixing specialty material powders (that the Chinese now want to stop exporting), melt the composite and cast the "glass" into pucks...and the machining starts from there from blanks.
Those glass are more expencive. The cheaper every day ordinary glass is only casted into molds to final "shape and dimensions".
The coating at the very end of the process specially calibrated to specific "needs".
For example you can buy a DSLR camera lens for $100 or $500 or even $10K, all depend what you need it for. You shall expect the cheaper glass was molded (and eventually just polished to specs) and the most expensive was completely machined from blanks.
My 10-50x60 scope I can see .22 holes @ 200 meters in paper, .308 holes @ 500 during sunny mid days and sometimes I think I can measure the group sizes with a reticle at 800, of course on white background. But I had dark rainy days as well where I could not see the group @ 200 on black paper.
The coating on the scope internal glass.... pretty much no one will enhance=amplify on image quality ... what comets through the very first glass that is it and every aditional lens coating will just exponentially deduct.

Btw, you can test your scope lens coatings very easy. You remember there were several posts in past about how can you "initial levelling your scope" with a see through mirror and flashlight or leaning the scope on window glass? The best coatings you won't see much...

 

[Airgun-hobbyist]

Here's a good article on light transmission that goes into lense coatings and how our eye's see through the lenses.

https://journalofmountainhunting.com/light-transmission-by-tom-bulloch

 

[boscoebrea]

There is some great info here

 

[boscoebrea]

To make things easy, just get the scope with excellent light transmission.
Then some people think the bigger the lens, the better the scope, the bigger the tube, the better the scope ...Now we are learning that is not true,it is the quality of the optics.
Why else would a cheap Chinese scope with a 56mm and 34 tube sale for $150 ?
Quality optics is an investment.