Some scopes and binoculars advertise the fact that they use: ED Glass. And no this is not short for ‘erectile disfunction’, ‘Dept. of Eduction’ or ‘Edward’. ED stands for Extra low Dispersion glass, a special type of glass that has been formulated with chemical compounds that are designed to reduce chromatic aberration.
Chromatic aberration is a prismatic effect caused by light passing through a highly curved lens or lenses; such as in scopes with a high magnification factor. With 1-10x LPVO’s chromatic aberration is all too common. The light is refracted and slightly separated into its component colors like in a prism. ED glass compensates for this refraction, producing a clearer image that is in register.
So why don’t all scopes use ED glass? There are some trade-offs. ED glass is more expensive, can be more brittle, and has a little less light transparency. The practical benefits of ED glass can outweigh these trade-offs in many use cases. For long range precision, having a scope that is slightly darker but clearer would arguably be better than a scope that’s better in low light but blurrier.
The scopes in this video are available on Amazon through these affiliate links which support my channel:
Panzer https://amzn.to/3NZUk8e
Razor HD Gen iii: https://amzn.to/3tZSP2K
