❓ Scopecaming — The Higher the Scope Magnification the Better?

[JungleShooter]

Scopecaming — The Higher the Scope Magnification the Better? ​

Help me and check if I'm thinking correctly about scope magnification when taking scopecam footage.


Goal:
I want to record and edit my shots in such a way that the quarry is very large — so large it pretty much fills the frame.


Methods:
● In order to achive that I need a very large total magnification.
I can achieve that using three methods:
(a) When editing, digitally enlarge the image and crop it.
(b) When filming, increase the digital zoom of the scopecam.
(c) When filming, increase the optical "zoom" of the scope (the scope magnification).

● Methods (a) and (b) make the image more grainy and thus reduce the sharpness of the image a lot.
Method (c) reduces the sharpness only as much as the scope quality goes down when using higher magnification. The top scopes I hear don't loose much sharpness.

Am I missing anything?



Conclusion:
Therefore I should:
● (a) Buy a scope with a high top end magnification.
● (b) Buy a scope with high glass quality that maintains excellent sharpness even at high magnifications.

Correct?



Dilemma:

● For c. $500 I can get a Vector Continental 5-30x56. It fulfills (a) as it has a high magnification.
● Or — for c. $500 I can get a Riton X7 Conquer 3-18x50. It fulfills (b) (sharpness) as it is usually sold at three times that price.
There are other contrasting options I could mention.

Your advice?
(Buying both, trying them out, and sending them back is not an option, sorry.)



Friends, for years you've been helping me spend my money, you pack of enablers!!
Now help me spend my money wisely, please.

Matthias

 

[starlingassn]

fyi,arken is still having a sale on the sh4 gen2
scopes,
6-24x50 for $299 ,
no scope ive had at even twice that price has ever even come close to the arken in ANY way.

that said, i pick,
a tiny bit of A,
i will just ever so slightly crop the video to make sure the crosshairs are centered on the screen.

a little bit of B,
i use my phone (galaxy s10+) to record through a side shot scopecam phone mount,i run the pro video mode on the camera shooting in fhd at 60fps,
and only zoom it to 4x,
which fills up the screen nicely.

and a big chunk of C,
i run my arken on 18x pretty much all the time for scopecam-ing,
and it makes the intended target nice and close in the video.

 

[starlingassn]

also i should add.

if the camera you are using allows it,
use manual focus,
and focus it to your crosshairs,
then youll use the parallax adjustment on the scope to focus the image.

i hate seeing blurry out of focus reticles in scopecam vids lol

 

[bigHUN]

I am also interested.
Having some 40+ years hands on with photography lenses .... I would go with Japanese or German (eventually Russian) glass.
Second, what distance you talking about? That would dictate the scope power. You not only want to hit the ring at longer ranges but to see the details.
Falcon X50 I am seeing the POI sharp and clear on paper at 150M, my Nikko Diamond with x32 falls behind at 100M.
Also, when I am fully zoomed in into my rings, with X50 at x40 or x50 power I can see the pellet or slug travelling the second half of distance, I don't see the beginning of travel.
I don't think that any optic exist that would cover a full depth of view = from muzzle to POI if we talking per say 100M. Unless $3-4-5K ??
And we know the fact that the most critical change in flight is happening in a first 1/3 of a distance... beyond 50% the projectile is almost certainly stabilized.

 

[JungleShooter]

Thanks for your replies.

Good point about focusing the reticle. Yeah, I need to readjust my Tactacam, it's a bit out of focus.


Yeah, high quality glass is nice.
The (financial) dilema though is
whether to
▪ get a higher magnification scope with lower glass quality,
or
▪ get a lower magnification scope with a higher glass quality.


➔ I'm very much confused about what to buy — even about whether my reasoning is even sound about this whole issue or if I'm having some mayor flaw there somewhere....

Matthias

 

[bigHUN]

I would suggest take a better glass. If power zooming is not enough you can always move closer

 

[hawkeye69]

The only thing you left out is video resolution. If your camera is capable of it, shoot in 4k instead of 1080. Then you can enlarge the image in post without losing clarity. Tactacam's newest 5.0 model will shoot in 4K but only at 30 fps.

 

[Joedirt199]

Lower magnification with higher glass will look better than higher magnification with lesser glass. The image will be darker and not as crisp. With a brighter crisper image you could have room to play with the digital zoom and not degrade your image as much.

 

[N2 Shooter]

If you use a 4K Camera, you can zoom in 2x in the edit, and you'll still have a 1080p full HD video. So that would effectively make your 4-16 scope an 8-32.

I did this on a many occasions when I shoot video for my businesses.