About to come out with a review of the Steiner 3-18x56 with ATACR 4-16x42, Schmidt US 3-20x50 and some other scopes. NF and Schmidt are somewhat baseline scopes, a big focus of mine was to compare low light performance expecting the 56mm objective to show a distinct advantage as light got low. You’ll see more details in the review but i was surprised to observe the advantage being a lot more minuscule than i thought it would be. Keep in mind another limiting factor is restricted exit pupil size - short body high erector (like 8x magnification) can and will limit exit pupil at lower magnification. Most manufacturers will publish exit pupil (if at all) at the highest magnification which can be a bit misleading because at max mag the rule of objective diameter divided by the magnification applies, but as you dip down into lower mags the exit pupil does not follow the same formula so while you might think the NX8 2.5-20x50 at 10x would have an exit pupil of 5mm (50 / 10) that is likely not the case so the advantage of the 50mm objective may not be as much an advantage as one might think. I would venture to say the Bushnell 4.5-18x44 would likely have a larger exit pupil than the NX8 due to the design of both scopes - the LRHS being longer and having a 4x erector vs 8x gives it an advantage with exit pupil at lower magnification even though it has a smaller objective. Another area that the Steiner definitely excels in is a forgiving eyebox and wide FOV. So while I like the NX8 if you need a super short scope with large magnification range, it may not be the best choice for other applications due to the compromises involved with it’s design intent.
