Varifocal Spectacle Wearers-Advice Please!

[bybrett]

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I tried some last year. They were the "better" ones from Vision Express, from whom I have had excellent service got years.

 

They were useless and I took advantage of their 90 day refund period.

 

I went back again this year, after I wore my frames out taking them on and off to read so often, and this time stumped up for the Zeiss lenses. These are not only made for your prescription, but also the frames and your face and eye size etc.

 

It's like chalk and cheese. These are brilliant and well worth the money. The additional cost was about a hundred quid.

 

Walking down stairs is still a challenge though...

 

Another reason to get that bungalow...

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[Reeray]

I tried some last year. They were the "better" ones from Vision Express, from whom I have had excellent service got years.

 

They were useless and I took advantage of their 90 day refund period.

 

I went back again this year, after I wore my frames out taking them on and off to read so often, and this time stumped up for the Zeiss lenses. These are not only made for your prescription, but also the frames and your face and eye size etc.

 

It's like chalk and cheese. These are brilliant and well worth the money. The additional cost was about a hundred quid.

 

Walking down stairs is still a challenge though...

 

+1 for the Zeiss lenses. Wouldn't use anything else and have been a happy user for 20+ years now.

[andybarton]

Unfortunately soft v/f contacts can't correct for astigmatism, which single focus ones can.

 

I tried bifocal hard gas permeable contacts last year, but just couldn't get used to them again, despite having worn hard lenses in my thirties.

[edmond_terakopian]

Thanks all for the feedback and advise; very much welcome. I have astigmatism too, so by the sounds of it the contacts are out, but intrigued by the system they use!!

[sblitz]

I use various glasses but when I am going to shoot I will put in my bifocal contacts. It is amazing how well they work As for shooting with glasses my only real issue is seeing frame lines like the 28 and even the35 on the m9. But then I can chimp.

[sblitz]

I meant varilux glasses

[lars_bergquist]

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I am 76, have bad presbyopia – focus fixed beyond the horizon, and no accommodation. I have for years used synthetic varifocal/progressive lenses for absolutely everything, including M cameras. Absolutely no problem.

 

Old style metal eyepiece frames (M4-P and older cameras) can ruin synthetic lenses really fast, but the eyepiece can be replaced with a rubber-rimmed M6 one, which completely removes the problem.

 

Using the specs soon becomes intuitive. You put your eyepiece where you can see the rangefinder patch clearly, and accept the rest (which is not really bad – remember that even without specs, you can see sharply only with the small area of the fovea. No matter: we see with our brains, not with our eyes.)

 

Please not that ALL spectacles with positive lenses for longsightedness, plain or multifocal, give rise to pincushion distortion. Similarly, negative lenses create barrel distortion. This is a plain optical fact of life and you get used to it pretty fast.

 

The old man from the Monocular Age

[NZDavid]

I am assuming varifocals are the same as progressives. I need them sometime. Either that or a separate pair of reading glasses and distance glasses. Which would drive my wife batty. People who have them like them. Right now, I take my glasses off to read close up, for example, camera settings or look at the LCD. (I'm short-sighted.) But one reason I am holding off: My eyes are changing as I near the half century mark and will change again next year, so I might wait until they stabilize.

 

Yes, plastic lenses scratch like hell, but they are a lot lighter.

[Thomv]

The Zeiss glasses are perfect from a sharpness perspective. Little chromatic aberration as well. But the distortion is significant. Not only stairs, but also objects which are not in front of you. I can still use a standard diopter correction lens, luckily.

Less scratches on the expensive Zeiss plastic lenses

[sblitz]

in the us all glasses are plastic, some govt regulation ruled out glass lenses in the 80s, i think, so no choice here -- plastic only

[roydonian]

I switched to varifocal lenses some 20 years ago. The convenience of having all ranges from reading to infinity was a big advantage, but I only had good distance vision in a small patch. At the cinema, I had to move my head to ‘scan’ the total area of the screen.

 

Following cataract surgery in one eye during the summer, I had temporary glasses made, with one lens set to match the untreated short-sighted eye (about –2.5 diopters) and the other made to match the treated eye (which the surgeon had set to focus at around arm’s length). To save money, I opted not to have varifocals.

 

When I walked out of the opticians with my new glasses on, I was astounded. For the first time in 20 years, the entire field of view was in focus. There was a whole sharp and detailed world out there. I can’t help regretting the two decades of mediocre vision that I’d unwittingly accepted in order to have the convenience of close and distance vision from the same pair of glasses.

 

One caveat however – my pre-surgery prescription had involved a large amount of cylindrical correction in order to handle astigmatism. So it’s possible that my varifocals were cramming too many corrections into a single pair of lenses.

 

Both eyes have now had cataract surgery, and my recent experience in using the M viewfinder/rangefinder are covered in another thread "M finder after cataract surgery" that can be found further down the page in this section of the forum.

 

 

Best regards,

 

Doug

[edmond_terakopian]

I switched to varifocal lenses some 20 years ago. The convenience of having all ranges from reading to infinity was a big advantage' date=' but I only had good distance vision in a small patch. At the cinema, I had to move my head to ‘scan’ the total area of the screen.

 

Following cataract surgery in one eye during the summer, I had temporary glasses made, with one lens set to match the untreated short-sighted eye (about –2.5 diopters) and the other made to match the treated eye (which the surgeon had set to focus at around arm’s length). To save money, I opted not to have varifocals.

 

When I walked out of the opticians with my new glasses on, I was astounded. For the first time in 20 years, the entire field of view was in focus. There was a whole sharp and detailed world out there. I can’t help regretting the two decades of mediocre vision that I’d unwittingly accepted in order to have the convenience of close and distance vision from the same pair of glasses.

 

One caveat however – my pre-surgery prescription had involved a large amount of cylindrical correction in order to handle astigmatism. So it’s possible that my varifocals were cramming too many corrections into a single pair of lenses.

 

Both eyes have now had cataract surgery, and my recent experience in using the M viewfinder/rangefinder are covered in another thread "M finder after cataract surgery" that can be found further down the page in this section of the forum.

 

Best regards,

 

Doug[/quote']

 

Cheers Doug :-)

[nick.edwards1]

Hi Edmond,

 

Just a few notes on my experience of varifocals and glasses in general - I have worn glasses for more than 50 years and I am short sighted with astigmatism:

 

- Light weight is so important - the bridge of your nose will suffer with heavy lenses and frames - for me this means titanium half frames with plastic lenses.

- Coated lenses are a must for reducing undue reflections and helping to stop scratches.

- Titanium frames bend and bend back without a problem - I used to get smacked in the face periodically when we had horses (waving their heads around at feed time) and the titanium frames just bounced back - worth the extra expense.

- If you have oval or roundish frames - check the glasses when you get them as I have has problems where the frames were glazed with a small angular displacement error of the lens- only a couple of degrees but everything was blurred - just tilting the lens on my nose confirmed the problem and everything snapped clearly into place - The optician was able to adjust the lens in the fame to correct the error.

- As has been said - don't get lenses that are too slim - you need a certain depth of lens to accommodate the variable focus - even on medium depth lenses the in-focus area is very small.

- I am very sensitive to the cleanliness of my lenses - a quick wash under the tap with warm water (& Fairy Liquid if necessary), dry with soft kitchen towel or Kleenex, then I always use a Leica micro-fibre cloth to give them a final polish - the difference is amazing.

- The 28mm viewfinder frame lines are difficult to see, but can be managed.

- And, yes, some people cannot cope with varifocals, but if you can they are very good.

 

Best regards,

 

Nick.

[edmond_terakopian]

Hi Edmond,

 

Just a few notes on my experience of varifocals and glasses in general - I have worn glasses for more than 50 years and I am short sighted with astigmatism:

 

- Light weight is so important - the bridge of your nose will suffer with heavy lenses and frames - for me this means titanium half frames with plastic lenses.

- Coated lenses are a must for reducing undue reflections and helping to stop scratches.

- Titanium frames bend and bend back without a problem - I used to get smacked in the face periodically when we had horses (waving their heads around at feed time) and the titanium frames just bounced back - worth the extra expense.

- If you have oval or roundish frames - check the glasses when you get them as I have has problems where the frames were glazed with a small angular displacement error of the lens- only a couple of degrees but everything was blurred - just tilting the lens on my nose confirmed the problem and everything snapped clearly into place - The optician was able to adjust the lens in the fame to correct the error.

- As has been said - don't get lenses that are too slim - you need a certain depth of lens to accommodate the variable focus - even on medium depth lenses the in-focus area is very small.

- I am very sensitive to the cleanliness of my lenses - a quick wash under the tap with warm water (& Fairy Liquid if necessary), dry with soft kitchen towel or Kleenex, then I always use a Leica micro-fibre cloth to give them a final polish - the difference is amazing.

- The 28mm viewfinder frame lines are difficult to see, but can be managed.

- And, yes, some people cannot cope with varifocals, but if you can they are very good.

 

Best regards,

 

Nick.

 

Cheers :-)

[Rick]

Thanks all for the feedback and advise; very much welcome. I have astigmatism too, so by the sounds of it the contacts are out, but intrigued by the system they use!!

 

Recently, multifocal soft contact lenses have become available that correct for astigmatism. I don't generally fit multifocal soft lenses because, for most people they are a compromise. Gas permeable multifocal contacts have been around for ever and can work extremely well in some cases. Monovision contact lenses, both rigid and soft, can work extremely well in some cases as well. Good luck.

[edmond_terakopian]

 

Recently' date=' multifocal soft contact lenses have become available that correct for astigmatism. I don't generally fit multifocal soft lenses because, for most people they are a compromise. Gas permeable multifocal contacts have been around for ever and can work extremely well in some cases. Monovision contact lenses, both rigid and soft, can work extremely well in some cases as well. Good luck.[/quote']

 

Ta :-)