tomk,
I don't know. He's owned that z6 for several months so I doubt it.
Omid,
In my last post you will notice the z8i lasted twenty minutes longer than three good scopes; and 31 minutes longer than a Swarovski z6. What do you think allowed this. By the way, both the owner and I agreed when the scopes went down.
Hi Rigman,
My comments above don't contradict your observation. The Z8i's exit pupil is sufficiently large for low-light observations at low powers (8mm is still larger than max dilation of human eye pupil) and at high power it will act like any other scope and its brightness will depend on the "actual" objective size. The Z8 scope you tested had a 56mm objective lens compared to 50mm in others. A 56mm objective collects 25% more light than a 50mm objective (lens area is 25% larger) so it will look brighter at medium/high power. What power did you use for your observation? Did you compare all three scopes at same power, say 10X?
-Omid
Omid,
As much as is possible all the optics I play with are set on the same magnification setting. I called Swarovski, Leupold, and Bushnell about the accuracy of their magnification ring settings. All were adamant the numbers are accurate.
The owner of the two Swarovskis was a little late arriving. Since the z6 was the poorest performer we used it on the lowest setting on which we could clearly make out the 13” wide deer antlers 131 yards away. That was 15X. The z6 and the 6500 both have 50mm objectives. And yet the z6 (costing about 2 ½ times more) got beat by eleven minutes.
In my comparing I discovered exit pupil when looking for good low light performance is a joke. Along those same lines I compared my Minox 13X56 (two 56 mm objectives) with my Bushnell 6500 4 ½-30X50 (one 50mm objective). I set the 6500 on 13X. It lasted two minutes longer than the Minox. I traded the 13X56 for a Minox 15X58 (two 58mm objectives). It was so much better I thought it might be as good as the z8i. Not so; although it did beat the 6500 set on 15X by nine minutes. But the z8i (one 56mm objective) lasted eleven minutes longer than the Minox 15X.
