As a contact lens wearer, I'm curious if this affects the way perceive optical quality, as I seem to be unable to notice the differences that others do. I do have 20/15 vision with my contacts in, so it's not a case of "blurry will always be blurry."

I will also say that most of my experience is with optics in the $200-$600 range, which is probably the most common amongst moderately serious hunters. I'm not going to claim that a $40 Wal-Mart Tasco is as good as a $2,000 Swarovski, there are obviously differences.

From what I've found in that common range though is that there isn't a whole lot of difference. I am unable to distinguish anything between the newer Leupold VX-1's and their VX-3's or various Nikon, etc scopes in the same category. I've taken them out at sunset trying to pick out details in shadows minute by minute and cannot say that one is superior to the other.

Same goes for binoculars, I spent about 2 hours in a Gander mountain looking through a variety of binoculars in that price range, picking out small words on advertisements across the store, color contrast, sharpness, brightness in shadows or dark areas of the roof or other areas. It wasn't until I stepped up to the $1,000 Zeiss Conquests that I could definitively say that one is better than the other.

Do I just not know what to look for or does my hunting style not demand it? To be fair I am not watching elk from 5 miles away, I can rarely see anything past 500 yards.

Is there some credibility to eye problems or corrective lenses masking these quality differences, or it is just up to people's individual eyes like taste buds, or overrated entirely as a marketing premise?

Good glass in the proper package is Good Glass regardless if you wear contacts, glasses or have eagle vision.

Gatogrizz27,

Before I started using some kind of optics I used leaves and twigs. I thought my Bushnell 6500 4 1/2-30X50 was as good as my Nightforce 12-42X56. When I switched to an optic chart and compared them at 500 yards the Nightforce was on 12X, the Bushnell was on 15 1/2X and the Swarovski z5 5-25X52 was on 16 1/2X.

I'm a contact wearer myself, I can tell slight sharpness and clairity differences...but the big difference go me is low light performance. The other day I had out a Burris FFII 3-9 a Leupold VX3 1.75-6 and a Meopta 6x. I set the variables to 6 x and played with all of them the last 30 minutes of light. The Burris faded out way before the other two. The Meopta and VX3 being close to each other with the #4 reticle in the Meopta being better to me than the heavy duplex of the VX3. I'd hunt either of those but the Burris didn't cut it for me loosing valuable minutes of shooting time. I was scanning different objects including my dog from 15-200 yards.

I would say no. But with spotting scopes and binoculars you do easily see a difference in how some work better than others with glasses mainly because of eyerelief