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Message: <blockquote data-quote="henry link" data-source="post: 3279722" data-attributes="member: 6806">I guess I'm going to have to introduce a contrarian view about contrast. I can't think of any mechanism that could cause visual optics to have too much contrast (except in a special case I'll describe later). Even the highest contrast binoculars never have contrast equal to the scene being viewed because aberrations and light scattering in the optics always transfer some photons from the bright areas where they are supposed to be into the dark areas, where they become a thin fog of non image forming light. Unlike electronic displays, there is no way to dial up the bright areas while simultaneously dialing down the dark areas to create an exaggerated appearance of high contrast. The only limited way I can see to introduce any sort of false contrast in visual optics is to manipulate the spectral curve so that wavelengths of one color are transmitted at a much higher level than the wavelengths of another color, in other words employ a color filter. The transmission might be 95% at 650 nm (red), for instance, compared to 70% at 450 nm (blue). That would be the equivalent of a mild red filter and would create a false increase in contrast between red and blue objects, but only in one direction. If a red object is inherently brighter than a blue object the contrast would be artificially increased, but if a blue object is brighter than a red object the contrast would be artificially suppressed. In any case the image would have an obviously red bias.I can't explain reports of subtle color tones being better presented by Zeiss binoculars, but I don't think it has anything to do with other binoculars having too much contrast.</blockquote>

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