Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Light gathering ability 44mm vs 50mm

In general, is there a large gain in light gathering ability between 44mm & 50mm?

Depends on your specifics eyes but, yes, potentially. Let's assume we are talking about zeiss conquest scopes, so the glass/coatings etc between the two are similar.

At max power you are going to have an exit pupil on one of 4.4 and an exit pupil on the other of 5.0. Assuming your eyes dialate that much you should see a difference.

Even if your eyes can't dialate enough to take advantage of the larger exit pupil, you will be able to run the 50 at a higher power to achieve the same exit pupil as the 44 in every case, which, again you should notice

Hope this helps. The other consideration is the sheer size of 50mm objective scopes. These days I'm happy with 42 as my max though do occasionally think about putting a 50 on a specialized rifle

It depends on the quality of glass and coatings IMO. If your goal is low light performance, make sure you can see the reticle against a cluttered background. Often times the glass is plenty good enough, but the reticle may suck.

No glass gathers light, it only transmits it. Quality of glass and coatings is much more important than the size of the the objective but all things being equal the larger lense will allow more light to flow through although the advantage is VERY small.

As I calculate it a 44 MM objective has an area of 1520 square MM's and a 50 MM objective has an area of 1964 square MM's therefore providing 444 more square MM's or about 29% more light assuming equal lens coatings, etc.

+1

This.
A 36mm VX3 is going to transfer more light than 50mm BSA..

Used to use 3-9x50mm Leupolds years ago. Switched to 40 & 42mm objectives over 20 years ago. Never missed an opportunity because of light gathering ability so far. Go w/the 40-42mm Leupolds and don't look back. powdr

A few years ago I switched to the larger objective because on two occasions I could see the deer was a buck, but couldn't see if it was a fork or not. Now both my hunting scopes are 52mm and my varmint scope is 50mm. Definitely helps.

This.

The better difference in light transmission comes with increasing the tube diameter.

Still not a magnanimous difference compared to quality glass in the first place... But a scope that has a larger tube diameter and quality glass is the best bet. Usually, that means some pretty serious money as well.

You can get scopes that are good for $500-$750.

To take the small step up to get one that is a small percent better, the price difference is substantial.

Imbrb - In general- new 'good' glass like VX2 or better is so damn good it makes using larger lenses less "necessary" than even a few years ago. I used straight power 6x scopes for years for their brightness. Usually 6x42 but a new Vx3 40mm variable proved even brighter than the old gold standard. Like others have said- quality trumps size and the good news is that there is plenty of competitive quality available right now.

In a nutshell a larger objective lets you see better at higher magnifications including in low light- all components being of same quality of course.

How does this work?

Yeah, I'm interested in hearing about that as well.

How 'bout a real world comparison between two quality scopes of differing tube diameters? Almost no one will say a z5 5-25X52 does not have good glass and almost everyone says a VX-6 4-24X52 has good glass. The tube diameter on the z5 is 1". On the other hand the tube diameter on the VX-6 is 34mm. That gives the VX-6 about a 34% cross sectional advantage. And yet in side by side setting-sun test on deer antlers in the woods 131 yards away, neither has an advantage. They both punk out at the same time.



By the way the z5 cost about 14% more than the VX-6.

A Good comparison.

What about Resolving Power?

can anyone explain that wrt different Objective diameters,
where objective and internal lenses are of similar optical quality ?

Thanks

My only experience with that is that it supposedly easier to make a larger lens, and their proper curvatures, than it is to make a smaller one. As far as tube diameter goes, that has been debunked years ago. I think it was one of the euro scope makers that threw out that BS to see if it stuck to the wall. Apparently it did have many folks think that way and some still do.

It was the U.S. advertising agency for a Euro-scope maker, and as I recall the ad campaign claimed a 30mm tube resulted in a brighter view by allowing more light through the scope.

But somebody published a hunting optics book in 1999 that demonstrated why this wasn't true. Apparently a lot more people saw the ads than ever read the book.

Yes that 30mm rule only is in effect during a solar eclipse. The next one over the US is Aug. 21, 2017.

If you see that guy tell him I liked his book.

Tell him I wished I had it