Your eyesight goes bad. Your doctor says time for a choice.

[Racer X 69]

I'm fortunate that I still read the bottom line on the eye chart every other year when I get a physical to renew my CDL medical certificate.

But about 15 years ago while rebuilding a carburetor I was trying to read the numbers stamped on the jets. For some odd reason I found my arms weren't long enough anymore, and even if they were, at that distance the small stuff can't really be read anyway. I added an illuminated magnifier to my toolbox.

Over time my close up vision degraded to the point where the magnifier wasn't convenient enough.

So I picked up some of those cheap reading glasses at the five and dime.

Now I have a pair in each of my cars, my pickup, my truck, my toolbox in the shop, next to the computer at my desk, a pair that I carry with me everywhere, and a backup pair somewhere.

I even have safety glasses with the cheaters built into them.

If I suddenly find myself without my readers I am blind closeup. Everything is blurry.

And lately I find that in a darkened room everything is blurry. So I asked the ophthalmologist during a checkup what he could do. Now I have a "prescription" set of glasses for watching TV in the evening, and they have the bifocals built into them.

They also work well when using the camera gear, the combination of the light prescription and bifocal helps me to focus, and move from looking at the close up things to the near distant stuff easily and quickly. I still find the need to either look over the top of them or remove them while outside in the daylight.

And when doing closeup detail work I am now finding the need for the jeweler's magnifiers.

Getting old can suck if you let it get to you.

Or you simply adapt and keep on doing what you love to do.

[catalinajack]

If you have the money and are willing to pay for them, lenses can be manufactured for each that will correct vision in the same way as contact lens. The doc will use an optical scanner to precision map each eye's shape so that the lenses can be made to correct the specific aberrations in each eye, rather than merely correcting for distance or near vision. Cost? $2,500 per eye when I had it done three years ago. Does it work? Yes, no glasses needed for terrific vision.

[Graham Patterson]

I have two sets of glasses, one for general wear, and one for reading/computer work. I have had short sight since my first decade, so wearing glasses has become normal. The reading glasses are not good enough for fine work (punching down ethernet cables, viewing ground glass screens), so I use a set of flip-up magnifiers on my general glasses. That way I have easy general vision, and my close-up work benefits from the astigmatism correction in my normal prescription.

I'd rather deal with the extra expense and minor inconvenience of multiple pairs than use bi/tri/transitional lenses at the moment. But I reserve the right to change my mind!

[Tin Can]

I wear Transitions with progressive and would never let anybody cut my eyes. Transitions are very dangerous when riding a motorcycle into a tunnel, they don't change fast enough. First time was insanity. Now I stop.

I am now 63 and my eye doctor tells me my eyes are getting better! I once was -8 and now -6, he claims this is normal. I still need glasses.

I find I focus best with them off and stick my face as close as possible to GG. Loupes don't really help, I use a Mamiya C3 focus hood when needed.

Last night I was doing some tinkering and I thought maybe I should try those LED Headlights I bought months ago. The Headlights were amazing and I am now going to use them all the time, of course they are not for focusing...

[E. von Hoegh]

Let's say you enjoy perfect eyesight, a blessing indeed for our line of work. (snip)

Let's not. In my right eye, without glasses or other aids I can focus from about 11 to about 14 inches. My left eye is more or less fixed at about 12 inches. Both eyes are astigmatic, I've never had normal vision or anything near it. I work with what I have.

[Harley Goldman]

I would always take sharp distance vision and reading glasses over the converse. I value being able to enjoy the scenery, drive, wear non-prescription sunglasses, etc without glasses. I would be willing to have to put on reading glasses to view the ground glass, read, etc. But of course, that is my preference. Yours may differ.

[Curt]

I can only say a couple hundred things about glasses, lenses, frames, and contacts but I won't. Optometrist or Ophthalmologist?

Contacts for extreme astigmatism: No
Cheap frames: No
Split bifocals: No
Hoya progressives: No
Varilux progressives: Yes
Transitions: No & No; explaination: My Ophthalmologist said transitions are not recommended for photographers, transitions are not recommended for driving in a vehicle in bright sunlight. They do not turn dark enough to protect the eyes. So it's Varilux and clipon's.
Convenient? No, no, no, no, and no.

What? I can't hear you! Sir I need hearing aids Sir, I still can't hear you!! Maybe you need them too, Sir.
Anyone have five grand for a pair? I need them badly. That's a little off topic.

[Drew Bedo]

In 2002 My eyesite went from best corrected at 20/35 to 20/200 over just a few days due to a stroke that affested only the optic serve. LF photography is much harder now, but I stil do it. Check out some of my images on www.artsyhome.com


To the OP, Heroique: Loss of vision is traumatic at any level of loss. Whatever you do regarding correction—keep shooting. Your creative vision may change as your vision changes, but keep doing photogrpahy.

[Blooze]

I feel sympathy for anyone with eyesight issues. I was diagnosed with keratoconus at age 13 in May of my HS freshman year. By the start of the school year in August I couldn't differentiate my fingers from anything else in both eyes no matter how close I held them to my face. 4 cornea transplants and 7 other surgeries later (I'm 44) my vision is correctable to 20/20 in my left eye, which is nearsighted, and 20/50 in my right eye, which is farsighted. My depth perception can get really interesting with my glasses off as you can imagine. I'm pretty much stuck with glasses as I've tried all the but the newest types of contacts which came out in the last two years and are very expensive per year, totally out of my budget. They make my progressive lenses look quite cheap. I've also never been a candidate for any kind of laser surgery until yesterday. Speaking with my new ophthalmologist yesterday they have come out with a new software upgrade for the ablation lasers that will do precise, specific correction based on orbscan mapping which is essential with my lopsided corneas Something I will definitely be looking into in the future.

Although I haven't yet gotten my feet wet in LF photography, I can say that I enjoy using my Yashica TLR's with the magnifying loupe to focus much more than any other camera I own. It's entirely easier to do, which is one reason I'm looking at getting a 4x5 in the next year.

[rdenney]

I've been wearing glasses for astigmastism since I was 7 or 8. Now, they are trifocals.

But they don't work for me. I have a congenital muscle imbalance that means I cannot fuse my vision (aka, binocular vision) when looking down or to the left. Bifocals require me to look down, so I end up reading and other things with one eye unfocused and unaimed. After a few minutes of that, it takes 10 or 15 minutes for that eye to focus on anything, near or far.

I've never not required glasses when using a camera.

For computers, I have glasses corrected to the middle lens on my trifocals for the whole lens. I use the same correction for playing music. The doc asked me why I couldn't just look up or down to read the music, when I told him I played tuba, and the tuba dictates where the face is, and the face dictates where the glasses are. I have trouble seeing fine movements of the conductor, though. Oh, well!

I may at some point have a pair made that have a very close correction over the whole lens, and use those for fine work. But that won't work, probably, for photography.

My standard strategy is to cuss loudly, throw my worthless glasses across the room, cuss some more, go find my glasses, cuss some more, whine to my wife, etc. Keeps me happy.

Rick "too afraid of the surgical options" Denney