ORIGINAL: Solitary Man
I bought a VX III when they first came out and compared it tothe Zeiss Conquests I owned at the time. I have a USAF resolution chart I use for this purpose. I'm not sure exactly what an index matched lens system is, I only know what my own eyes saw and the Leupold could not resolve detail quite as well as the Zeiss scopes. I was surprised because Iwas expectingthe VX III to be a vast improvement over the Vari X-III (based on Leupold's claims), but to my eyes it wasn't at all.
I might give the VX L a tryatsome point, but I really don't have a strong desire to do so.I just can't get past the goofy looks.
Ok, first things first. Optics 101. With all things equal, the resolving power of a scope, microscope, camera lens or a 100mm telescope is proportional to the objective size. So biggest factor with resolution was which scope had a larger objective?
Coatings only help with the transfer of the photons to the eye. There are a few things that cause issues, that index coating can help. The biggest is back reflection. I am lucky enought to have several of these in my lab for several different types of optics. But for me to measure on a scope the lense should be removed, or results may very. Think of it as a reflection on a pond. Thepond is actually reflecting "POLARIZED" photons. Polarization is important. Every surface has an index of refraction. What you want is to match the index the index of the glass to the air. Better match, better transfer of photons. Photons are not polarized and scattered back. GOOD THING. Several other, kinda hard to explain like, Buillion scatting, SBS, polarization dependent loss. Dont' worry, its boring crap.
Matching this is easy in a lab enviroment. We do it all the time up to 99%. But we can only match it in a particular humidity, temperature, and altitude. Whats difficult is matching it in high quanities. This is where QA (quality assurance) comes to play. Which company does a quality check more, and which adhears to thier quality policy? Also, depends on your enviroment. A ziess may work good in the valley where a leupold might work better at 10,000 feet with 10% humidy and 20F.
You can stack 30 leupolds and 30 ziess on a countertop. If all are correctly adjusted for focus for "YOUR EYE", you are going to find a spread of performance. Just because you looked thru a leupold at bass pro, doesn't mean the one in the box you are getting will have the same performance. Biggest mistake I see is most people will not focus correctly for thier eyes. They confuse out of focus with clarity, lens quality, and tranfer of photons. These people have specs. Just because we ship out a optics reciever with awesome performance doesnt' mean they all will be that way. But all are in spec.