The other night I compared scopes by trying to read the license plate across the street and I was so puzzled by what I saw that I decided to try again with more care. I compared a Leupold LPS 1.5 - 6 x 42 with a Nikon Buckmasters 3 - 9 x 40. Both scopes were dismounted (was going to anyway), dials were centered and lenses cleaned. I cut holes in a cardboard box and stuck the scopes through to make a big binocular for faster acquisition when going back and forth and used the same eye for each series, since my eyes, and yours too most likely, are a little different. Just fooling around today I tried to columnate the tubes and it's almost spooky using crosshairs in 3-D. Anyway, after dark I put a newspaper out in the back yard under mainly moonlight and tried to read the headline - Nikon wins. With the scopes off the rifles I felt comfortable enough to go out on the street and read more license plates and again, Nikon wins - not by much and it's hard because my eyes kept trying to adjust, squinting and so forth, but it kept coming up Nikon.
Color intensity is another story. A red car with a weathered finish in the shadows might have been a little redder with the Nikon, but probably too close to call, and I might have "wanted" the Nikon to win. I'm pretty sure that a dark blue car that looked black to the naked eye did look more blue with the Leupold. Really, it's amazing that any scope will pick up color at night that you can't even see unassisted.
These things are not easy to see, and any license plate that had good streetlight looked the same with both scopes. The trick is to find something that is almost invisible. Optics and light transmission are very complex subjects, and if anyone knows enough to set me straight I will eagerly read it, since I'm really curious now. I did not run a drop test and will not. I am sure that the Leupold had a more durable finish than the Nikon, which shows bright aluminum easily. I can also see that the 30 M/M Leupold gives the same field of view with about 1/2 power more magnification that the 1 inch Nikon. The Nikon is practically new, while I bought the Leupold at least 10 years ago. I've taken it shooting a few times and hunted with it some, but I don't hunt very hard, and I can't believe anything happened to it. Maybe I just got the best scope Nikon ever made.