ED glass, CA and mirage

[Turbulent Turtle]

I always believed that the Super ED glass in the 10-60X56 HM was the reason for the retardation in the degradation of IQ in mirage conditions. Deon has confirmed that fact and they had a hypothesis for it, but that's all it is, a hypothesis. That's why I'm using the scare quotes on official. If it can actually move to a theory, then I'll drop the quotes, or more likely, I'll forget about them soon enough.

But yeah, it's neat that what I and many other folks have been seeing, was acknowledged by the manufacturer.

The March-X 10-60X56 HM, aka, "The Shimmer Killer."

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

@Fred Bohl You know, if we ever meet at a match, we should take the time to trade made up stories, lies, and various anecdotes. I would even let you buy me a G&T.

I'm considering the Nationals in Phoenix in October.

 

[Fred Bohl]

Turbulent Turtle - It would be great to get together, but my match days are over due to health issues. Also, todays travel costs keep me here in Wisconsin. If you ever get to a match nearby or the EAA show I would be more than happy to buy you that G&T.

 

[PracticalTactical]

I have often considered depth of field to be more relevant to mirage than ED glass.

There is a trend with some of the newer scopes to be more compact and short. Whenever I use such an abomination I am quickly put off by the optical experience.

I'm no optical engineer but I suspect the shorter scope requires more oblique refraction angles and that results in a shallow depth of field. In such case, the image may appear sharp in clear conditions but with a short depth of field the mirage is difficult to read.

By contrast, the long scopes of old, even without ED glass can seem sharper in heavy mirage because it allows us to see the mirage as the source of image distortion instead of a distorted image that is unavoidably caused by mirage, but hidden from your view via short depth of field.

I have done tests on this as close at 25 to 50 yards and the difference is quite obvious. I have 2 scopes that have a minimum parallax of 50 yards. When I try to look at a 25 yard target with the two scopes, one is completely blurred out while the other is hardly even out of focus.

I do not see value in any scope with such a shallow depth of field that it obscures mirage through such trickery to present itself as somehow superior when in fact the image is distorted in heavy mirage regardless of the glass you use. There is no way to look through a zone distorted by heat and humidity and not see a distorted image.

As riflemen it is far more important to see the mirage so we can read it.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

I'm not sure how familiar you are with Super ED-glassed riflescopes. You do state that you are not an optical engineer. Neither am I, but I do know that DOF is a function of f-stop, focal length, distance to the objective (target) and CoC. It has nothing inherently to do with how compact a riflescope is.

If you want to increase the DOF of your riflescope, the easiest, fastest way to accomplish that is to change the f-stop or f-number of your scope by slapping on a field reducer or modifier disk at the objective lens. Simply reducing by half, will increase the DOF dramatically. In simple terms, big objectives lenses mean lower f-stops (wider aperture) and reduced DOF. On the other hand, the big objective lenses provide for greater resolution of the objective, and better resolution usually means better contrast and sharper images.

The ED glass, and especially the Super ED glass of the shimmer killer has qualities that traditional optical glass, no matter how good it is, lacks; it controls CA for all wavelengths.

The shimmer killer allows me to see the mirage very nicely as a river, but it just doesn't mangle the target like traditional-glassed scopes. And it comes with a modifier disk that reduces the aperture by one full stop and thus provides a dramatically increased DOF in an instant, while still preserving the IQ of the target.

 

[PracticalTactical]

I'm not sure how familiar you are with Super ED-glassed riflescopes. You do state that you are not an optical engineer. Neither am I, but I do know that DOF is a function of f-stop, focal length, distance to the objective (target) and CoC. It has nothing inherently to do with how compact a riflescope is.

If you want to increase the DOF of your riflescope, the easiest, fastest way to accomplish that is to change the f-stop or f-number of your scope by slapping on a field reducer or modifier disk at the objective lens. Simply reducing by half, will increase the DOF dramatically. In simple terms, big objectives lenses mean lower f-stops (wider aperture) and reduced DOF. On the other hand, the big objective lenses provide for greater resolution of the objective, and better resolution usually means better contrast and sharper images.

The ED glass, and especially the Super ED glass of the shimmer killer has qualities that traditional optical glass, no matter how good it is, lacks; it controls CA for all wavelengths.

The shimmer killer allows me to see the mirage very nicely as a river, but it just doesn't mangle the target like traditional-glassed scopes. And it comes with a modifier disk that reduces the aperture by one full stop and thus provides a dramatically increased DOF in an instant, while still preserving the IQ of the target.

What you are actually doing by reducing the objective lens diameter is trapping out the part of the lens with the sharpest angle of refraction.

You are doing the same thing as you would if the scope was longer at the cost of reducing light gathering which increases eye strain.

Either way, my point stands that sharp refraction angles cause short depth of field.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that low res glass is any sort of an advantage. Its just that many scopes from 40 years ago were usually longer than they are today because old school designers had integrity and understood the cost of trade offs. Modern manufacturers are often sell outs to a naïve consumer base that do not understand the stupidity of features consumers request from manufacturers.

To make the sale, manufactures make it and promote it, even when it is not "better".

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

What you are actually doing by reducing the objective lens diameter is trapping out the part of the lens with the sharpest angle of refraction.

You are doing the same thing as you would if the scope was longer at the cost of reducing light gathering which increases eye strain.

Either way, my point stands that sharp refraction angles cause short depth of field.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that low res glass is any sort of an advantage. Its just that many scopes from 40 years ago were usually longer than they are today because old school designers had integrity and understood the cost of trade offs. Modern manufacturers are often sell outs to a naïve consumer base that do not understand the stupidity of features consumers request from manufacturers.

To make the sale, manufactures make it and promote it, even when it is not "better".

(Deleted the useless hieroglyphs.)

You obviously did not read or understand my prior reply to you. Let me try one final time.
The DOF of an optic is a function of the focal length of the optic, the focus distance from the optic to the target/subject/objective, the f-number of the lens and the CoC.

By reducing the objective lens diameter, I am increasing the f-number, which means I am decreasing the aperture. This has the direct effect of increasing the DOF of the optic. There are many online calculators for DOF. The one I use is from DOF master: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

The scopes of yesteryear (40 years ago) were long because the state of the art was not up to producing decent IQ on telescopes that could sit on a rifle and still make some kind of weight limit. They were long to increase the focal length, and had large f-numbers with their small objectives. So those two things kinda cancelled each other out in terms of DOF.

Also riflescopes of that era were all fixed focus at 100-125 yards or some such. The fixed focus didn't really affect the performance due to the low magnification and high f-number. When magnification started increasing (either through longer focal length or smaller CoC - needed for higher zoom ratios--), AOs first appeared and then were followed by the side focus with the additional lens that we now have.

I do not agree with you one iota about the way you impugn current day optics designers, saying they lack integrity compared to designers of old. That is total hogwash; fake news of the highest order.

If you want a standard 3-9X40 or some such, which was the state of the art 40 years ago, there are plenty of such optics nowadays that will blow those old scopes out of the water; the technology has advanced dramatically. It's like you trying to compare a hand calculator of the 1980s to a Smartphone of the 2020s.

The point of this thread is to discuss an observation that I reported here over 2 years ago, which has now been validated by the manufacturer. Super ED-lensed riflescopes preserve their IQ in mirage conditions better than non Super ED-lensed optics.

 

[Justin Credible]

What you are actually doing by reducing the objective lens diameter is trapping out the part of the lens with the sharpest angle of refraction.

You are doing the same thing as you would if the scope was longer at the cost of reducing light gathering which increases eye strain.

Either way, my point stands that sharp refraction angles cause short depth of field.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that low res glass is any sort of an advantage. Its just that many scopes from 40 years ago were usually longer than they are today because old school designers had integrity and understood the cost of trade offs. Modern manufacturers are often sell outs to a naïve consumer base that do not understand the stupidity of features consumers request from manufacturers.

To make the sale, manufactures make it and promote it, even when it is not "better".

How can you suggest that scope designers today have less integrity than 40 years ago? I guarantee today's designers understand trade-offs just as well as the designers of old. Today the market demands light scopes with huge magnification, huge magnification range, huge objectives, and crazy reticles. They deliver those things. And they know the trade-offs in delivering those things. For myself, and I'd wager the majority of shooters even though they don't know it, all but the light weight has very little use to me. But that's what people want so that's what they get. It's not designers pushing it, it's consumers demanding it because they think they need it. No amount of common sense or education will change the average consumers mind on these things. You want to stay in business, you supply it.

You also have to remember that the designers of today have design software and glasses that were not available "back in the day". Scopes were long, and therefore heavy, to help control things like spherical aberration using the materials they had available. Now we have fancy high-index glasses, better glass pairings to minimize chromatic aberration, and computers to help optimize the selection of glass as well as the curves on the glass. Not to mention better tools to verify the performance of the optics. If designers 40 years ago had these things the scopes would have looked, and performed, differently back then.

I like simple scopes... I want a straight 20 - 25X with a big dot for target shooting and something like a 3 - 9X, maybe a touch more on the high and less on the low end, with a duplex and maybe a holdover point or two for big game hunting. Maybe a straight 10 or 12X for varmints. 40mm MAX for an objective, preferably less with the big game scopes. I don't need super-duper resolution (though it is nice), I'd rather the money go in to mechanical robustness. Any company that goes into business to supply what I desire, and quite frankly would satisfy most consumers if they were honest with themselves, will go broke as that is not what the market wants. It's not the dealers, it's the junkies.

Justin

 

[6bra1k]

How can you suggest that scope designers today have less integrity than 40 years ago? I guarantee today's designers understand trade-offs just as well as the designers of old. Today the market demands light scopes with huge magnification, huge magnification range, huge objectives, and crazy reticles. They deliver those things. And they know the trade-offs in delivering those things. For myself, and I'd wager the majority of shooters even though they don't know it, all but the light weight has very little use to me. But that's what people want so that's what they get. It's not designers pushing it, it's consumers demanding it because they think they need it. No amount of common sense or education will change the average consumers mind on these things. You want to stay in business, you supply it.

You also have to remember that the designers of today have design software and glasses that were not available "back in the day". Scopes were long, and therefore heavy, to help control things like spherical aberration using the materials they had available. Now we have fancy high-index glasses, better glass pairings to minimize chromatic aberration, and computers to help optimize the selection of glass as well as the curves on the glass. Not to mention better tools to verify the performance of the optics. If designers 40 years ago had these things the scopes would have looked, and performed, differently back then.

I like simple scopes... I want a straight 20 - 25X with a big dot for target shooting and something like a 3 - 9X, maybe a touch more on the high and less on the low end, with a duplex and maybe a holdover point or two for big game hunting. Maybe a straight 10 or 12X for varmints. 40mm MAX for an objective, preferably less with the big game scopes. I don't need super-duper resolution (though it is nice), I'd rather the money go in to mechanical robustness. Any company that goes into business to supply what I desire, and quite frankly would satisfy most consumers if they were honest with themselves, will go broke as that is not what the market wants. It's not the dealers, it's the junkies.

Justin

you are not among those that shoot small groups at long range....i do not care that a scope weighs 3 lbs...the rifle is 32 right now.
we are a diffrnt group but not junkies

 

[PracticalTactical]

How can you suggest that scope designers today have less integrity than 40 years ago? I guarantee today's designers understand trade-offs just as well as the designers of old. Today the market demands light scopes with huge magnification, huge magnification range, huge objectives, and crazy reticles. They deliver those things. And they know the trade-offs in delivering those things. For myself, and I'd wager the majority of shooters even though they don't know it, all but the light weight has very little use to me. But that's what people want so that's what they get. It's not designers pushing it, it's consumers demanding it because they think they need it. No amount of common sense or education will change the average consumers mind on these things. You want to stay in business, you supply it.

You also have to remember that the designers of today have design software and glasses that were not available "back in the day". Scopes were long, and therefore heavy, to help control things like spherical aberration using the materials they had available. Now we have fancy high-index glasses, better glass pairings to minimize chromatic aberration, and computers to help optimize the selection of glass as well as the curves on the glass. Not to mention better tools to verify the performance of the optics. If designers 40 years ago had these things the scopes would have looked, and performed, differently back then.

I like simple scopes... I want a straight 20 - 25X with a big dot for target shooting and something like a 3 - 9X, maybe a touch more on the high and less on the low end, with a duplex and maybe a holdover point or two for big game hunting. Maybe a straight 10 or 12X for varmints. 40mm MAX for an objective, preferably less with the big game scopes. I don't need super-duper resolution (though it is nice), I'd rather the money go in to mechanical robustness. Any company that goes into business to supply what I desire, and quite frankly would satisfy most consumers if they were honest with themselves, will go broke as that is not what the market wants. It's not the dealers, it's the junkies.

Justin

Spoken like a true neophyte... You are actually helping to make my point.

Yes, Designers are being asked by a naïve public to deliver what will never amount to an improvement in the optical experience, rather a degradation of performance. The public wants things that require what are quite frankly stupid optical compromises. Worse yet the typical naïve consumer, buys the product and never even realize what was sacrificed to provide them with these attributes.

Sure they can throw high end lenses on it, but that will never offset the optical mechanical sacrifices.

 

[Justin Credible]

you are not among those that shoot small groups at long range....i do not care that a scope weighs 3 lbs...the rifle is 32 right now.
we are a diffrnt group but not junkies

You are right. I am a sling shooter, from 50 to 1000 yards. My requirements are different than those of other disciplines. But most people buying this new breed of super scope is not doing that. They are buying "the best" because that's what they think they need, even though it might be holding them back (e.g. too much magnification relative to their hold). The buying power of this group is a big driver in the scope world and they are always looking for the next "fix" to improve their shooting, instead of training. That is what I mean by junkie. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, I'm no wiz-bang pistol shooter but I still buy nice pistols because I can even though they don't help my shooting.

If you need the scope to do what you do, you are not among the junkies.

 

[Justin Credible]

Spoken like a true neophyte... You are actually helping to make my point.

Yes, Designers are being asked by a naïve public to deliver what will never amount to an improvement in the optical experience, rather a degradation of performance. The public wants things that require what are quite frankly stupid optical compromises. Worse yet the typical naïve consumer, buys the product and never even realize what was sacrificed to provide them with these attributes.

Sure they can throw high end lenses on it, but that will never offset the optical mechanical sacrifices.

I might not be the best shooter in the world, but I am certainly not a neophyte when it comes to shooting or optics. Of course I was helping to make one of your points; the general shooting public demands scopes that they don't "need" and (I think) often ridiculous. Manufacturers make them because that's how you stay in business.

The points I disagree with are that current designers lack integrity or understating of the compromises they make. Lens design is all about compromise. And there are glasses that designers of the past could only dream of (and I don't just mean ED glass), optimization software they would have killed for, not to mention a public willing to pay a lot more for their product... all of which allow for a better design and things that used to be unimaginable (such as 10X zoom factors). You take the designers of old and give them the materials and tools of today and you would have today's scopes. I would love to see a good scientific test of the optical qualities of today's scopes vs. the old ones. I'd wager the new ones will win. Mechanics? I'm not sure. I know I would like to spend more money on good mechanics before better optics or crazy reticles.

I do take issue with manufacturers saying things like "Made with Schott glass." So? That says nothing about who made the lenses. A crappy lens shop west of east nowhere China can screw-up a chunk of Schott glass just fine. The assembler of the scope just north of there can mis-align the lenses with no problem. The designer can have a crappy design (due to cost constraints or skill) that even the best manufactured and assembled lenses will not fix.

All you can do is make reasonable recommendations on scopes for your buddies, and accept that good advice will probably be ignored!

Justin

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

You are right. I am a sling shooter, from 50 to 1000 yards. My requirements are different than those of other disciplines. But most people buying this new breed of super scope is not doing that. They are buying "the best" because that's what they think they need, even though it might be holding them back (e.g. too much magnification relative to their hold). The buying power of this group is a big driver in the scope world and they are always looking for the next "fix" to improve their shooting, instead of training. That is what I mean by junkie. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, I'm no wiz-bang pistol shooter but I still buy nice pistols because I can even though they don't help my shooting.

If you need the scope to do what you do, you are not among the junkies.

Now, I get your point.
For a sling shooter, a 40X or 60X or higher scope makes absolutely no sense. As noted by the bolded snippet in your reply.

This is why I have been emphasizing F-class shooting in this thread. I shoot F-TR and I can assure you that I can hold on target at 50X for a long time; the rifle, the bipod, the setup, and yeah, the experience, all enable e to do that with no issues. I am not unique in that respect. In F-Open, it's even easier to hold on target at high magnification with the huge rests in common use.

This is what is driving the demand for high magnification and getting shimmer (mirage) protection with Super ED lens is a great heretofore hidden benefit. I shoot at 50X all the time in F-TR.

I know other shooters with the March-X 8-80X56 who sometimes run at 80X.

It's a different discipline.

 

[6MMsteve]

the time of year you look through a scope has an advantage, a June peep is much diff than a Dec peep, overcast in Dec is much diff than overcast in June. But I could be wrong but it seems that way, this is something I been thinkin about but it can be a factor when buying a scope, you looked through the scope in June then buy in Dec and could be disappointed

 

[PracticalTactical]

I might not be the best shooter in the world, but I am certainly not a neophyte when it comes to shooting or optics. Of course I was helping to make one of your points; the general shooting public demands scopes that they don't "need" and (I think) often ridiculous. Manufacturers make them because that's how you stay in business.

The points I disagree with are that current designers lack integrity or understating of the compromises they make. Lens design is all about compromise. And there are glasses that designers of the past could only dream of (and I don't just mean ED glass), optimization software they would have killed for, not to mention a public willing to pay a lot more for their product... all of which allow for a better design and things that used to be unimaginable (such as 10X zoom factors). You take the designers of old and give them the materials and tools of today and you would have today's scopes. I would love to see a good scientific test of the optical qualities of today's scopes vs. the old ones. I'd wager the new ones will win. Mechanics? I'm not sure. I know I would like to spend more money on good mechanics before better optics or crazy reticles.

I do take issue with manufacturers saying things like "Made with Schott glass." So? That says nothing about who made the lenses. A crappy lens shop west of east nowhere China can screw-up a chunk of Schott glass just fine. The assembler of the scope just north of there can mis-align the lenses with no problem. The designer can have a crappy design (due to cost constraints or skill) that even the best manufactured and assembled lenses will not fix.

All you can do is make reasonable recommendations on scopes for your buddies, and accept that good advice will probably be ignored!

Justin

10 X zoom factors is a perfect example of an absurd feature in an FFP scope.

A zoon range like that can only mean the reticle will change from invisible at low magnification to a telephone pole at high magnification.

Sometimes just because you can does not mean you should.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

the time of year you look through a scope has an advantage, a June peep is much diff than a Dec peep, overcast in Dec is much diff than overcast in June. But I could be wrong but it seems that way, this is something I been thinkin about but it can be a factor when buying a scope, you looked through the scope in June then buy in Dec and could be disappointed

I agree, but in the other direction. We don't have much mirage in December so your optic will show a nice target at that time. Come June and the target will look like a crazed amoeba on crack, as I explained at the beginning of this thread.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

10 X zoom factors is a perfect example of an absurd feature in an FFP scope.

A zoon range like that can only mean the reticle will change from invisible at low magnification to a telephone pole at high magnification.

Sometimes just because you can does not mean you should.

Since you were facile with the aspersions, I was going to reply that your lack of imagination is breathtaking. But I reconsidered and instead will just reply as follows.

Modern riflescope makers have addressed that issue and they have come up with essentially two methods of dealing with this. I will use March scopes as my examples for 2 reasons: 1-they are the ones with which I am most familiar. 2- They are the only ones with 10X zoom ratios in FFP scopes that I am aware of. (There may be others, I just don't know about them.)

Method #1 is really intended for LPVOs. In the 1-10X24 DR1, March incorporated two reticles: an FFP and an SFP. The SFP reticle consists of a simple crosshair and a central illuminated dot. The FFP is a choice of a tree or a simple series of hash marks. At low power, all you really see is the crosshair and central dot. However, as magnification increases, you see lines growing out of the crosshair segments and numbers appearing. The crosshair segments stay the same thickness through the entire zoom range. Only the reference hash marks, or the central tree grow in size just as they become useful. Talk about a neat idea.

Method #2 is for the non-LPVO riflescopes. Actually, March only has 2 FFP riflescopes with a 10X zoom, the others are either 8X or less. The method is the same. It's called variable perspective. Let me explain.

The field of view of a scope shrinks as the magnification increases. In addition, as the magnification increases the image from the FFP grows. The perspective of the image at 40X is very different than the one at 5X. Say your simple crosshair is made of solid vertical and horizontal lines, then as the magnification increases, so do those crosshair segments. But when you consider that going from 5X to 10X reduces the field of view by half, at that time, half the crosshair segments are no longer visible. What remains is twice the thickness. Now go from 10X to 20X. You've just halved the FOV again and note that 75% of the crosshair is no longer visible. One the other hand, the remaining 25% is now 4 time the original thickness. But it really doesn't have to be the same thickness as the other 75% of the crosshair to begin with.

What astute modern riflescope makers do is design FFP reticle in which the inner part is much finer than the outer part; in other words they take advantage of the changing perspective. They even design tree reticles that only start to show up after you have zoomed in and they become very useful for higher magnification and longer distances. At low magnification the tree appears as a small chevron with the tip at the center of the reticle, surrounded by the proper size crosshair segments all pointing to the center.

At higher magnification the eyepiece is filled with the now good size tree and little bits of the thick crosshair segments on the edges.

I suspect other high-end, astute modern riflescope makers use method #2 in their own products.

 

[PracticalTactical]

Since you were facile with the aspersions, I was going to reply that your lack of imagination is breathtaking. But I reconsidered and instead will just reply as follows.

Modern riflescope makers have addressed that issue and they have come up with essentially two methods of dealing with this. I will use March scopes as my examples for 2 reasons: 1-they are the ones with which I am most familiar. 2- They are the only ones with 10X zoom ratios in FFP scopes that I am aware of. (There may be others, I just don't know about them.)

Method #1 is really intended for LPVOs. In the 1-10X24 DR1, March incorporated two reticles: an FFP and an SFP. The SFP reticle consists of a simple crosshair and a central illuminated dot. The FFP is a choice of a tree or a simple series of hash marks. At low power, all you really see is the crosshair and central dot. However, as magnification increases, you see lines growing out of the crosshair segments and numbers appearing. The crosshair segments stay the same thickness through the entire zoom range. Only the reference hash marks, or the central tree grow in size just as they become useful. Talk about a neat idea.

Method #2 is for the non-LPVO riflescopes. Actually, March only has 2 FFP riflescopes with a 10X zoom, the others are either 8X or less. The method is the same. It's called variable perspective. Let me explain.

The field of view of a scope shrinks as the magnification increases. In addition, as the magnification increases the image from the FFP grows. The perspective of the image at 40X is very different than the one at 5X. Say your simple crosshair is made of solid vertical and horizontal lines, then as the magnification increases, so do those crosshair segments. But when you consider that going from 5X to 10X reduces the field of view by half, at that time, half the crosshair segments are no longer visible. What remains is twice the thickness. Now go from 10X to 20X. You've just halved the FOV again and note that 75% of the crosshair is no longer visible. One the other hand, the remaining 25% is now 4 time the original thickness. But it really doesn't have to be the same thickness as the other 75% of the crosshair to begin with.

What astute modern riflescope makers do is design FFP reticle in which the inner part is much finer than the outer part; in other words they take advantage of the changing perspective. They even design tree reticles that only start to show up after you have zoomed in and they become very useful for higher magnification and longer distances. At low magnification the tree appears as a small chevron with the tip at the center of the reticle, surrounded by the proper size crosshair segments all pointing to the center.

At higher magnification the eyepiece is filled with the now good size tree and little bits of the thick crosshair segments on the edges.

I suspect other high-end, astute modern riflescope makers use method #2 in their own products.

I fail to see how any of the above changes the absurdity of what you seem to be calling astute.

The realities of wild magnification changes against a relative reticle cannot be argued.

My point began with how short scopes cut depth of field, and I'll build on that in that it also tightens the eye box... another frustrating aspect of modern so called astute scope designers.

Locking turrets are another example of moronic modern scope feature that has miraculously caught on.

You can luv on that junk all you want, but its not for me.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

I fail to see how any of the above changes the absurdity of what you seem to be calling astute.

The realities of wild magnification changes against a relative reticle cannot be argued.

My point began with how short scopes cut depth of field, and I'll build on that in that it also tightens the eye box... another frustrating aspect of modern so called astute scope designers.

Locking turrets are another example of moronic modern scope feature that has miraculously caught on.

You can luv on that junk all you want, but its not for me.

1- "I fail to see how any of the above changes the absurdity of what you seem to be calling astute."

This is what I meant by lack of imagination. I explained how the riflescope makers of today use the changing perspective of the image with advanced reticle designs, or dual reticles. (The dual reticle image in the March 1-10X24 DR is awesome and looks magical. It is, bar none, the best LPVO design extant.)

2- "The realities of wild magnification changes against a relative reticle cannot be argued."
I don't even understand what you are saying here. What is a relative reticle?

3- "My point began with how short scopes cut depth of field, and I'll build on that in that it also tightens the eye box... another frustrating aspect of modern so called astute scope designers."
I'm done trying to explain DOF to you, you simply refuse or are incapable of understanding how that works.

As for the "tightens the eye box", that has more to do with the zoom in the scope; that's another optic thing that I'm not even going to attempt to explain to you. Suffice it to say, that the exit pupil of a 1X24 will be much larger than for a 10X24. Same with a 10X56 vs a 60X56. That's what zooms bring in.

4- "Locking turrets are another example of moronic modern scope feature that has miraculously caught on."

Funny you should mention that. You don't have to get locking turrets. If you do have locking turrets, you don't need to lock the turrets. There have been times when I wished I would have locked the turrets on some of my scopes. If you like exposed turrets, having a way to lock them instead of putting on a cover, is a neat feature.

5- "You can luv on that junk all you want, but its not for me."

Understood, you like the plain Jane stuff, no new features or enhancements for you. You like the riflescopes of 40 years ago, when:

1. There were no or very few fully multicoated lenses.
2. Most riflescopes were fixed power.
3. The few variables had zoom ratios of 2X, maybe 3X.
4. The maximum magnification was around 10X.
5. There was no true 1X magnification.
6. The tubes were multiple parts and not well sealed.
7. The knobs were not clicks, just a screw with no steps.
8. The reticles were very simple wires and not etched in glass.
9. There was definitely no zero stop on the knobs.
10. The adjustment range was unknown and small.
11. There was no adjustable objective.
12. There was no side focus.
13. There were no illuminated reticles.
14. There was no ED glass.
15. There was no Super ED glass.

 

[PracticalTactical]

1- "I fail to see how any of the above changes the absurdity of what you seem to be calling astute."

This is what I meant by lack of imagination. I explained how the riflescope makers of today use the changing perspective of the image with advanced reticle designs, or dual reticles. (The dual reticle image in the March 1-10X24 DR is awesome and looks magical. It is, bar none, the best LPVO design extant.)

2- "The realities of wild magnification changes against a relative reticle cannot be argued."
I don't even understand what you are saying here. What is a relative reticle?

3- "My point began with how short scopes cut depth of field, and I'll build on that in that it also tightens the eye box... another frustrating aspect of modern so called astute scope designers."
I'm done trying to explain DOF to you, you simply refuse or are incapable of understanding how that works.

As for the "tightens the eye box", that has more to do with the zoom in the scope; that's another optic thing that I'm not even going to attempt to explain to you. Suffice it to say, that the exit pupil of a 1X24 will be much larger than for a 10X24. Same with a 10X56 vs a 60X56. That's what zooms bring in.

4- "Locking turrets are another example of moronic modern scope feature that has miraculously caught on."

Funny you should mention that. You don't have to get locking turrets. If you do have locking turrets, you don't need to lock the turrets. There have been times when I wished I would have locked the turrets on some of my scopes. If you like exposed turrets, having a way to lock them instead of putting on a cover, is a neat feature.

5- "You can luv on that junk all you want, but its not for me."

Understood, you like the plain Jane stuff, no new features or enhancements for you. You like the riflescopes of 40 years ago, when:

1. There were no or very few fully multicoated lenses.
2. Most riflescopes were fixed power.
3. The few variables had zoom ratios of 2X, maybe 3X.
4. The maximum magnification was around 10X.
5. There was no true 1X magnification.
6. The tubes were multiple parts and not well sealed.
7. The knobs were not clicks, just a screw with no steps.
8. The reticles were very simple wires and not etched in glass.
9. There was definitely no zero stop on the knobs.
10. The adjustment range was unknown and small.
11. There was no adjustable objective.
12. There was no side focus.
13. There were no illuminated reticles.
14. There was no ED glass.
15. There was no Super ED glass.

You forgot about fast focus ocular lenses... Another truly dumb idea.
But you first need to understand why its dumb, then you will realize that its really dumb.

It's pretty clear that you are more hell bent on pushing your love for regression of integrity than you are to truly consider the points I've made, and I'll not debate this point any further.

Not everything about new scopes is worse, but unfortunately much is, as I've mentioned.