Front of scope lens?

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CarlJ

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I have a Bushnell and a Nikon Buckmaster scope. Both of them when you look at the front lens glass, it looks like the color is distorted. Kinda like a rainbow, but not so many colors and irregular shaped distortion.

Wasup?
 
Could be just the coating or maybe a film from plasticizer in the caps or packaging. Any distortion when you look thru them? If no, no sweat.

RMD
 
It's the lens coating. If it weren't for that lens coating, the optical quality of the scope would be terrible.
 
Give this link a read, it is pretty informative. With a focus on Lens Coating:

LENS COATINGS - Being highly polished, a glass lens not only gathers light... it also reflects it away. And the more that is reflected away, the less you can see through the scope. Lens coatings are used to reduce reflection and improve light gathering. As you look at a coated lens from the side, you will see a colored hue to what is reflected in the lens face. Most coating hues are blue. Some are green. And some are pinkish. Some manufacturers have enhanced coating systems that use multiple coating layers and materials to give even better light gathering and the least possible reflection. Suffice it to say, lens coatings make such a big difference that no high quality optics are offered without them. The best in lense coatings is called: "Fully Multicoated".
Click to expand...

Depending on the objective lens coating(s) and curvature it is not unusual with the right angle of view to see the rainbow effect you are seeing.

Hope that helps...
Ron
 
Back years and years ago I was getting fairly heavy into photography. I asked a dude at the camera shop if there was really a difference, and if so what it was, between the top Nikon and lesser lenses.

So he takes me around to the front of the display case. REALLY expensive lenses all lined up like little soldiers, alongside some lesser priced ones. He says "see those little reflections? See these over here? They have eleven different levels, the cheapest ones have one or two"

So I start looking at them. The more reflections, the more coatings and the better the lens. After just a few minutes I could tell a cheap lens from a good one just by looking at the front. Cheap lenses had just a few.

Actually, you want to see the "rainbow". In fact, the more you see, the better the lens.

I've had cheap optics. I've had really good optics. If anyone tells you cheap stuff is just as good as the expensive stuff, they're a fool.. And, you're an fool if you believe them.
 
So that coating on the lens is pretty interesting.

If you look into the objective end of a high end scope you will not see your reflection.
 
its pretty cool to read about how different combinations of minerals effect light processing through the lens. Flouride, iron, they use all kinds of stuff that each have a different effect on the color spectrum. Pretty interesting stuff.
 
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