Progressive Lenses - a mistake?

[resummerfield]

.....it's only day 2, but I find them a little disorienting, and I'm not happy with how narrow the on-axis field of view is, and there seems to be a "barrel distortion" effect on the lower half of the view......

That's what I thought when I first started using progressives. Use them for at least 2 weeks before you make any decisions. I've had progressives, and bifocals, for about 10 years, and I would never think of going back to bifocals. The new progressives, the ones I got this year, are better than the ones I got about 8-10 years ago.

[Kirk Keyes]

Thanks for all the replies. I am near-sighted, and as Neil suggest and Pete suggest, I think I may get a pair with a single correction as an everyday pair. I really value being able to see everything sharp that is in the field of view of my lenses. And it is truely wierd to be walking and not have my feet infocus without having to tilt my head sharply downward.

I will give them another week or so and see how it goes. They did say I could try them out for a while and see what I think. Perhaps my brain will reprogram itself to work with the new lenses. I understand that you can invert what your eyes see with a pair of mirrors and in a few days, your brain will rewire itself and invert the image again so that what your eyes see looks right side up again.

[Bruce Watson]

I understand that you can invert what your eyes see with a pair of mirrors and in a few days, your brain will rewire itself and invert the image again so that what your eyes see looks right side up again.

Yes, you can. You can even learn to ride a bicycle with the inverting mirrors. But... this is a "fixed" distortion -- everything in your field of view is effected the same way and the same amount.

Progressive lenses present a variable distortion to your visual system. The amount of distortion applied to any given object in the scene varies depending on where you point your noise. I have my doubts (never read anything about this one way or the other) about how well, if at all, our visual systems can learn to compensate for this. Instead I suspect that the best that happens is that you get used to it and it doesn't bother you so much. But will you ever see that diagonal line as the straight line it is in reality when the glasses-induced curvature of that line varies depending on which part of the line you look at?

Here's an example photograph I made a few years ago. It has just such a diagonal line running through it from upper left to lower right made of the branches of a tree to the left and a fallen tree to the right. I made this photograph from this location because I saw this composition.

The question is, would I have seen this diagonal if I'd been wearing progressive lenses? I doubt it. As it was I was the only one in the group (there were four or five of us working this scene) who saw it.

I'm just sayin'...

[Dick Hilker]

Have you considered contact lenses? When my vision deteriorated to the point where the only effective correction introduced severe linear distortion, I started wearing contacts: after about 40 years with contacts, cataracts finally required implants and, much to my delight, I now have nearly 20/20 vision with no corrective lenses at all! The newer contacts are available in bifocal versions, one of which uses one eye for distance and the other for close-up work, the system I used very comfortably after about 6 months of getting used to it.

[CG]

I have bifocals, and they took me at least a couple of weeks just to get passably OK with. I'd give them a bit more time and then evaluate.

C

[Jim Bradley]

It took me a year to get use to mine. I used them intermiitently with a couple of pairs of fixed focal lengths. Finally one day they "worked" and the horrible distortion to the sides "disappeared" (actually it is still there but it doesn't drive me as crazy at it did initially).
JGB

[Clay Turtle]

I tried progressives when I reached the age of bifocal eyeballs about 7 years ago. The lab gave me a 30 day bring-em-back period to try the progressives, or I could take them back and get standard bifocals. I made it 10 days until I decided I was tired of falling up the stairs, walking into door jambs, etc. Never again.

Progressive eyeglass lenses were not invented as an improvement in vision technology. They were invented for a narcissistic population who can't stand the thought of themselves getting old and looking like it.

Ya, some might say that I wore contacts out of a sense of vanity . . . actually I learned that contacts tend to make the one work harder & therfore I only had to change prescription eveery 2 years insstead of every year.Shooting meant being out "camping for periods of time which isn't condusive to putting in your contacts. So I went back to glasses (now bifocal) I worn progressives for awhile now. The older strait progressives didn't really hinder me but more resent changes, do have their limitations, I found that when backing up, I normally tilt my head to look back tomake sure someone isn't in a blind spot. The newer versions tend to be like contacts designed to ride at a particular axis to the eye when you rotate you rotate your head these progressive tend to act like the swing & tilt does with the film plane in the camera you shoot.

[PViapiano]

Read here about my experiences with progressive eyeglasses:

http://www.paulviapiano.com/blog/arc...yeglasses.html

[Kirk Keyes]

Well, time to update this thread.

I gave the progressives 2 weeks to see how they worked. I got used to the distortion on the sides and from tilting your head. But I was still not satisfied with having such a narrow field of focus. The requirement to move my head instead of my eyes to see something in focus was not going to work for me.

I went back to my old prescription while they sent the frames in for new bifocal lenes. It took a week or so for those to show up, and within about 1 hr of putting on the new bifocal lenses, my brain had adapted to the new focus. I find the blurry, vaseline-y line between the two focal lengths much less of an annoyance than having a field of view that's 90% out of focus...

I had them put the division between the lenses a couple millimeters lower than the optician suggested to give a larger area of far vision. As it sits now, I can see the instrument gauges in the car on the top part of the lens, so I don't have to pop my nose up to get the transition line out of the way of the gauges. I'm glad that I did and I may have them drop it a couple millimeters again on the next prescription in a few years.

I went snowshoeing with the progressives and I could see that hiking on a narrow trail was not going to be something I'd want to do. Even with the bifocals, there's a large enough area that's almost in focus at the distance of my feet when looking through the lower half of the lens that it would not be much of an issue. Even with that, I'm getting my old frames relensed to be single focal length focused for distance for when I go hiking or riding or other outdoors activities.

[Capocheny]

Hi Kirk,

Good to hear you're accommodating to the new progressives... continue giving them a chance and, eventually, they'll be fine.

I've had mine for the last 10 years and they were definitely a challenge to get use to.

For the folks who wear progressives... how has your experience been in terms of focusing your LF cameras?

Personally, the glasses come off when it comes to focusing... but then, the nose is about an inch from the screen! :>0 But, they go back on when I'm using a loupe.

Somebody has recommended a pair of "computer glasses." Anyone have any experience with these?

Just think... the next step is the possibility of cataracts. For some people, after having cataract surgery, their vision improves to normal!

No more glasses, contacts.... or progressives!

Cheers