chromatic aberration (purple fringe) question for Elite 6500 scopes

[john777]

Hey all,

I just bought a Bushnell Elite 6500 2.5-16x42 mil-dot.

Is it normal to see some purple fringing at 16x unless the scope is perfectly aligned with my eye? The image looks great when I find the sweet spot, but looking at bright white objects tend to create this problem for which I don't know is acceptable or not. Not sure how it'll do with targets on a bright sunny day but I reckon I will see purple edges until I find the sweet spot and I gotta say, once I do, my head must not move at all.

I still see it at lower powers but less pronounced and vanishes when I find the sweet spot.

Thanks...

 

[Moose308]

Hey all,

I just bought a Bushnell Elite 6500 2.5-16x42 mil-dot.

Is it normal to see some purple fringing at 16x unless the scope is perfectly aligned with my eye? The image looks great when I find the sweet spot, but looking at bright white objects tend to create this problem for which I don't know is acceptable or not. Not sure how it'll do with targets on a bright sunny day but I reckon I will see purple edges until I find the sweet spot and I gotta say, once I do, my head must not move at all.

I still see it at lower powers but less pronounced and vanishes when I find the sweet spot.

Thanks...

I don't have an elite 6500 myself, but it is my experience that ALL optics will suffer chromatic aberration to some degree. My Swarovski's and Leica's exhibit it, if only barely. Usually this only occurs the extreme edges of the field of view, and usually only against bright white objects. It's the nature of the beast. Of course, the cheaper the optics, the more obvious it generally becomes.

 

[prosper]

I've seen chromatic error in every scope I've ever looked through to some degree, particularly on scopes with larger objectives or wide zooms.

I'd guess that putting extra elements (or using exotic materials, multi-density elements or aspheric grinds) in the lens (like they do with cameras) to correct this just isn't robust enough to work in a riflescope.

 

[john777]

Thanks for the input! Looks like I won't be exchanging it then...

I forgot to say it is first time I pointed it onto something bright white. But this is my first scope that I personally own. The other time when using scope, I never noticed anything. Then again, targets were shoot-n-cs and everything was brown (was shooting in the desert). lol