All sport optics gather light. But more $$ buys more light transmission.
I hate to dispute you based on semantics, but that is incorrect. No sport optics "gather" light. That is a term that is widely misused, probably as a result of optics company marketing jargon. "Gathering" infers actively increasing or intensifying, meaning greater than 100% of ambient light. All optics passively "transmit" light. There are always light losses due to coatings, internal reflections, and the transmissivity of the glass itself. The more lenses or glass-air surfaces inside the optic, the greater the light loss. The reason an optic gives the impression of "turning on the light" is because of the effects of magnification on the human brain, and the color spectrum of light an optic transmits. If an optic has coatings that allow more light in the blue spectrum to pass through, it gives the appearance of intensifying the available light. Of course, the larger the objective size, the greater the amount of light that reaches your eye. At best, any optic might transmit 90-95% of available light. That's best case scenario. This means best case, it can never "gather" anything.
Also, more $ doesn't always give you greater light transmission. In fact there are some moderately priced scopes that transmit more light than some high $ scopes. But, in a general sense, it is true that if you want maximum light transmission, you generally have to pay a premium for it.
