light transmission

mike · Guest

Nikon says the nikon monarch has up to 95% light transmission. Was woundering if that is the maximum for the scope or is it 95% for each lens.
thanks!
mike

mrgman · Guest

I am sure you will get a few more answers to this but I am quite certain that the 95% light transmission refers through the entire optics path. That, I believe, is the normal way to indicate the light transmitting quality of a lense system. You aren't going to use the lenses one at a time and certainly it would be of no use to you to know what the individual lenses were and not the system as a whole. The desired end result is that as little light is lost as possible due to the effect of the entire train of optics as compared to the raw source. I don't believe its possible using today's available coatings and glass lenses to actually get anything better than 96% (entire optics path), so 95% is very good in a reasonable quality/price scope. If some one points me out as being off in this regard, I will not have any heartburn over it.