#%$& Glasses

[gevalia]

Frank,

I wear contact but I am in the same boat. When I had my eye exam last October, I brought in my 4x5 and asked the doctor if he would help he determine a pair of glasses to wear when I am under the darkcloth (while I am wearing my contacts). He was more than happy to.

[neil poulsen]

Frank,

I wear contact but I am in the same boat. When I had my eye exam last October, I brought in my 4x5 and asked the doctor if he would help he determine a pair of glasses to wear when I am under the darkcloth (while I am wearing my contacts). He was more than happy to.

Exactly! I went to an optometrist and insisted on reading glasses that had an optimum focus of 12 inches. Experiment and pick a distance that will work best for your needs. Not all optometrist will know how to do that or will want to do that. They usually spec reading glasses to a greater optimum distance, like 18 inches or something. So, check them out before you select.

You can get those reader glasses, but they have the same correction in both eyes. Maybe you need a different correction for each eye.

And while we're on the topic, I get my glasses on a two-for-one deal. So, I also insisted on distance glasses whose optimum focus is at INFINITY! Not just the few feet to their chart on the wall. I like this much better for landscape photography and for driving. Again, some optometrists didn't even know what I was talking about. (It's amazing.) The one I like actually takes me outside his office with some of his lenses, and we look for the combination that allows me to see trees best off in the distance.

As for aperture scales and the like, you could keep a small magnifying glass in your shirt pocket, or something.

Have you had an opthalmologist check you out? To go from perfect vision to a point where diopters don't help is a big step and sounds suspicious. I'd want to know what the heck is going on.

[Frank Petronio]

Diopters work, my compliant about 35mm and DSLRs is that it is harder to confirm focus based on what I see in the viewfinder in general, not only because of farsightedness but also because the illusion of great depth of field, clutter, and "tunnel vision" from the APS-sized DSLRs.

[Turner Reich]

Try crawling under the house or you car/truck and working on your back looking up, with bifocals! The neighbors will hear you cussing for blocks.

[CG]

Some opthalmologists reputedly specialize in solving problems like ours. One nearby to me evidently works with marksmen who need to be able to use a scope and see the target unaided - much the same kinds of near and far vision issues we present. The next time I need to update my eyeglass prescription, I am going to see if the claims about his ability to work "magic" for special problems are true.

[Andrew O'Neill]

A colleague of mine recently had his eyeballs lazered. He was sitting in the staff room the other day all smiles. I asked him why he was all smiley and he says, "I can see through that womans clothes"....

Luckily my eyes are fine at 45 and I don't need Viagra...yet.

[Arne Croell]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Perfect vision until a few years ago, and since 8 years I need reading glasses to see the ground glass in focus (I'm 51). I think we LF photographers are probably a bit more attuned to it, because being under the dark cloth with a dim ground glass image is the condition where presbyopia is recognized first - I at least started to use reading glasses for that purpose long before I needed them for reading. The main problem for people like us that did not wear glasses before, is, as Kirk mentioned, that we're not used to wear them and to take care of them. My first pair of reading glasses I destroyed within 6 weeks by sitting on them -since then I either use the cheap ones from Costco, or a pair in memory metal frames that are nearly indestructable. And yes, they dangle around the neck. For the 4x5 I use 3 diopters nowadays, whereas its only 1.5dpt for reading.

[Dave_B]

And while we're on the topic, I get my glasses on a two-for-one deal. So, I also insisted on distance glasses whose optimum focus is at INFINITY! Not just the few feet to their chart on the wall. I like this much better for landscape photography and for driving. Again, some optometrists didn't even know what I was talking about. (It's amazing.) The one I like actually takes me outside his office with some of his lenses, and we look for the combination that allows me to see trees best off in the distance.

This is an interesting comment. I always assumed that glasses were optimized to focus at a hyperfocal distance and then worked OK from there to infinity. Does anyone know if they actually do this or what a hyperfocal distance would be for a typical pair of glasses?

[neil poulsen]

For me, there's a difference. Of course, one can make things out in the distance, but it's not in sharp focus.

But, one sacrifices being able to see things sharp at intermediate ranges. I didn't think to mention this in my original post. For example, things on the dash of a car won't look as sharp, or some things in a room. But, my eyesight is good enough at those intermediate distances that I don't wear glasses in the house. Only for driving, walking, when I'm outside. For me, it's worth the trade off. I dislike photographing and having that loss of sharp focus in the distance.

[redrockcoulee]

Although my wife is two years younger than me her eyes are going quicker than me. So sometimes I end up with hand me down glasses but she also uses my older glasses for watching TV. The only glasses I do not like using are her kitchen pair as they only have one arm and do not stay on when I am trying to cook or read the dog's prescriptions. At least my eyesight is better than Query's and she is only 14. I would tease her about that but she is also almost deaf.

Cannot wear glasses when driving as the world blurs that way and I would rather have to start wearng reading glasses for close up than always have to wear them for distance. By telling myself that I feel very very slightly better