Humorously, I am just waiting for a Black matte finished scope to be characterized by the term "Bright and Shiny."

I see "clear and bright", "Crystal Clear", etc used when what I am sure what they are attempting to describe is Contrast and Resolution.

This is not of course a criticism of the average poster, but more of a lack of general input from those optics guru's here abouts who could help with the education of these individuals as to what to look for.

Scope manufacturers that in fact think that people are looking for clear and bright scopes may in fact be doing a disservice to their clients in that a scope may be overly contrasty and provide optics which interfere with target definition. Similarly while a scope may appear "clear" to the novice eye, it may have resolution numbers which are far from those desired in professional optics.

Just my $.02. Comments

DMCI, interesting thoughts. I am one of the naive that has described scopes as 'Clear and Bright'. I mean it literally when I post it.
As an example, I have had the most current Leupold scopes, and in comparison to a Zeiss conquest of the same power and lens sizes, the Zeiss was more clear, and bright. To me this simply means that the picture had more precison, it was CLEARER, eg a newpaper print in the same font can be very clear--crisp printing and easy to read--or not. This is what I intend to convey by saying CLEAR. Bright is again a simple concept to me, the image appears to have more light. It is quite simply BRIGHTER.

My point is that I understand that these may not be technically accurate descriptions, and although It is 'clear' (pun intended) to me, it may convey something else to others, especially the technically knowledgeable, apparently such as your self.

I describe myself as naive, seriously, my definition of naive being, just don't know, as opposed to ignorant, which is just not knowing, but don't give a damn. I do have a book on optics by John Barnsness, which I need to finish, and probably re-read, but is there a book, or books you would recommend to help me see it more 'brightly'

What brought this up was my recent experience in a well-known sporting goods store. I was looking at a Chinese made scope that appeared at first blush to be amazingly bright and clear and only $49.95.

Then I focused it on a dollar bill tacked to the wall at 50 feet or so and the thing totally blurred out. A fairly decent resolution test failed miserably. The resolution we are looking for in my view is on the order of lines per inch at 100 yards.

As far as contrast, I like a mellow rather than a bright scope, easier on the eyes.

Qualitatively, these parameters are not difficult to compare in my view. You just have to have some idea of what to look for. Resolution and color fidelity are important when trying to sort out antlers and branches at several hundred yards.

If you want to have some fun print out the following and put it down range. See how many lines you can resolve at what size. Useful for comparing two scopes as well:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/1951usaf_test_target.jpg
D.

My guess is that cheap scope had poor coatings and no baffling. That meant lots of scattered light and lowered contrast. Probably plenty of light in the store and the scattered light from flourescents always looks bright somehow that way. So yeah, the image was light and bright, but lacking in contrast and resolution. The fake contrast was probably color distortion around the edges of things from all the scattered light. Giving a sharper than real quality to it. Really good scopes show a deep rich color, not a washed out image.

DCMI,

Your point is well taken. Without getting into brand arguments (everybody has his favorites and unfavorites), it is true that a number of manufacturers whose optics do not provide particularly good resolution use "coloring" and contrast tricks to make the image that appeals to the eye. Novices (and often seasoned but uninformed shooters) mistake the "bright" appearance for good transmission of a high resolution image. It's like turning up the color on your TV set or the contrast on your computer screen: If you make the colors unnaturally bright, then it may please the eye more than an accurate representation what the camera is seeing.

It tries the patience when one hears shooters exclaim how their $150 Malaysian wonder is "so much brighter" than your "(fill in the blank serious hunting scope)". Without comparing the two instruments for resolution, not to mention color accuracy, it is not possible to say which provides the superior image. It also seems some people are so impressed with "bright and clear" that they overlook little nicities like the scope's ability to hold zero, not fog, provide adequate eye relief, and any number of other factors critical to the performance of an optical gunsite.