In Part Two of this review series, we’re looking at ATN X-Sight 5 daylight image quality. Read on, because there are some big surprises along the way!
Today’s post follows-on from Part One where we made a general overview of the product.
Specifically, the precise, full, product name is the ATN X-Sight 5, 5-25 Smart Day/Night Scope. It’s positioned primarily as a hunting tool. As a “digital riflescope”, it’s a completely new concept to me and – I suspect – many HAM readers. Actually, I had never actually even looked through one before!
So, before diving deep into a feature analysis and all that exciting nighttime stuff, I wanted to start from a simple baseline: “What’s it like to look through in daylight?”.
In order to do this, it’s necessary to understand basically how the X-Sight works. Then I compared it to a conventional optical riflescope – as that’s what I am used to.
ATN X-Sight 5 Daylight Image Quality – Theory Of Operation
First I need to say that this investigation of image quality is actually focused on resolution.
We’re looking for the smallest image elements that we can actually differentiate downrange using my eyeball plus trifocal glasses. So we’ll be using a test target that’s made-up of different-sized parallel lines, as you’ll see below.
(There’s plenty of other aspects of image quality, such as contrast, color balance and many more, but they are too complex for me – at least – to deal with here.)
The X-Sight works in basically the same as the way your cellphone takes a photograph. You see the image on a screen and not directly through the lenses, as we do with a traditional riflescope.
Light from the target passes through the objective lens and is recorded by a capture sensor. This sensor has a size of 4,056 x 3,040 Pixels. (A Pixel is the dot that’s used to display all digital image information, including the stuff you are reading right now. If interested, you can read more here).
If we multiply 4,056 by 3,040 that makes a total of 12,330,240 Pixels. For simplicity this is usually represented as 12.3 MegaPixels. That’s the total number of “dots” that the X-Sight uses to create its images.
Then lots of complicated stuff happens electronically and an output image is created on the image display. The image is “framed” by lots of other information such as the reticle, magnification and much other useful data. That combined image is seen as light by our eye through an eyepiece lens.
However, that output image display has a resolution of 1,280 x 960 Pixels. That’s 1.23 megapixels. By simple mathematics, that’s 10 X less than is captured by the sensor.
So, it’s obvious that much less detail is projected into your eye than is “captured” by the objective lens and sensor. This is important to understand as we assess the image quality.
ATN X-Sight 5 Daylight Image Quality – Subjective Testing
Firstly, I looked through the X-Sight at it’s minimum 5 X magnification. Then I zoomed-it up in stages to the maximum 25 X mag.
I thought the image quality was adequate for relatively large objects, but would not be suitable for target shooting. That’s probably why ATN positions the X-Sight 5 as a hunting scope.
Typically a conventional optical riflescope enables more detail to be seen in the target as it is zoomed-in. In other words, smaller objects are resolved at higher magnification. We’re all familiar with this phenomenon.
However, a digital riflescope such as the X-Sight doesn’t work like this. If anything, the image you see through the eyepiece tends to be less clear as magnification is increased by “digital zooming”.
For confirmation, I asked the HAM Team’s resident “scope snob” Doug Rogers for his opinion. Doug is very discerning when it comes to optical quality. His opinion was about the same: “suitable for hunting and plinking”.
ATN X-Sight 5 Daylight Image Quality – Structured Test Procedure
But HAM readers rightly expect more than opinions in our test reviews. So I generated a structured test procedure to gain some hard data about the X-Sight’s daylight image quality.
First I constructed a test target. For our measurements, I affixed four USAF test targets towards the center, as you can see below. The target was then set at 12 Yards from the scope. (Note the measuring tape for confirmation).
(Note that ATN does not provide a specification for minimum focusing distance for the X-Sight 5. However it focused just fine at this 12 Yards range).
USAF resolution test targets are widely used in the optics industry. You can read more about them here if interested. They are specifically designed for the assessment of image resolution by combining many different-sized blocks of different thickness lines.
The smallest block of lines that you can “read” as separate bars represents the resolution. So, the smaller the blocks, the higher the resolution. Simple!
To provide a comparison to the X-Sight 5, I also tested a quality, mid-range conventional riflescope: a Hawke Sidewinder 4-16 x 50 30 SF.
At $600, the Hawke scope is cheaper than the $895 X-Sight. But, of course, it does not have the night capability so I considered this a fair comparison.
Both scopes were tested within a 20-minute period under bright, clear, cloudless conditions one mid-afternoon. So the lighting was effectively constant. I simply recorded the best readable resolutions with both devices at the same range.
The magnifications used for both scopes were 5, 12 and 16 x. The X-Sight also reached 25x, so I tested that too.
Although I made readings for each of the four colored test targets, we’ll just concentrate on the results from the black targets. (Typically the red and blue targets were a little less distinct and the yellow much less, although these results were more due to lower contrast rather than sheer resolution levels).
ATN X-Sight 5 Daylight Image Quality – Test Results
First, let’s start with the conventional Sidewinder optical scope as a baseline. At 5x magnification, I was able to read the block shown in the photograph below. Each line width is 0.39 Inches – 390 Thou.
At 12 magnification, I was able to resolve a much smaller block (as expected). These lines are 200 Thou wide.
The progress continued at 16 x. Then I was able to read the block with 160 Thou wide lines.
Of course, all these readings depended on the optical capabilities of my own eye, plus glasses. So your mileage may vary with this type of testing, for obvious reasons.
Now let’s see the X-Sight 5 results. At 5 x magnification, I was able to resolve the block with 0.79 Inch (790 Thou) lines. At 12 x I could see the 390 Thou thick lines and continued to do this – just – at all magnifications up to the maximum 25 x.
During the same session, I also took a still digital photograph using the X-Sight’s built-in image capture functionality. This comprises – I believe – a full-size “grab” of the entire capture sensor (4,056 x 3,040 Pixels) at the base, 5 x magnification in JPEG format.
When viewing this image zoomed-up on the high-quality, 27-Inch screen of my iMac, I was able to resolve the block indicated below. This means lines of just 70 – yes seventy – Thou wide.
WOW!!!!!
So the base resolution of the X-Sight 5’s capture sensor recorded lines just 70 Thou wide at a range of 12 Yards. That’s impressive!
ATN X-Sight 5 Daylight Image Quality – Analysis And Conclusions
Charting-out these test results, we can see that the resolution of the X-Sight 5 is less good at all magnifications than the conventional Hawke Sidewinder optical scope.
The X-Sight’s resolution at 12 X matched that of the optical scope at 5 x magnification. But – as expected – it did not improve at higher magnifications in the same way as the conventional optical scope.
Here’s hard evidence for that “adequate” subjective image quality rating for the X-Sight.
If we add the X-Sight’s base capture resolution to the chart, we see that the inherent resolution of the digital scope far exceeds that of the optical scope. If only that image quality could be made available to the user’s eye!!!!
In the next part of this review, we’ll investigate the huge functionality that’s built-in to the X-Sight 5. Stay tuned!
BUY FROM PYRAMYD
ATN X-Sight-4K, 5-20x Pro Edition Smart Day/Night Hunting Rifle Scope
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