Guest Post From Steve Minshall, CIH, CSP
I get a kick out of strolling the Exposition and checking out the vendors and their new wares. Just like you, I get the most out of those visits when I stop and talk with the vendors. This time, though, I had a personal mission: find a vendor who sold glasses for people who like to shoot clay pigeons ("clays" for short). Under different light conditions, different colors of lenses are more appropriate.
I happened upon the Bollé booth and got an education from Marketing Director Alex Brachet. A book I'm reading on improving your sporting clays scores suggests that the two most popular lens colors for clay shooters are a light shade of purple for bright days and yellow or amber for overcast or cloudy days. So that's what I wanted to know: Did Bollé have those colors in lenses? And that's where the education started.
According to Alex, lenses with red in them (as in the light purple lens) will cause your eye's lens to focus behind the retina. Who knew? He said it also makes the eye work harder, potentially leading to eye fatigue, headaches and the like. I wondered about some light blue lens safety glasses I picked up somewhere, thinking they might be good for clay shooting. Wrong again. According to Alex, the blue lens causes your eye's lens to focus before the retina--not what we typically want.
So, are there other choices? Again, according to Alex, a brown-tinted lens contains some red pigment, which helps the problem of near-sightedness (helps the eye's lens to focus behind the retina). Yellow and green lenses help the lens of our eyes focus directly on the retina. This is one explanation for why many sunglasses have a green(ish) tint. These colors also provide greater contrast and that could be a boon to a clays shooter.
What about blu-blocker glasses advertised on late-night TV? They do help reduce glare and Bollé has two lens technologies (known as ESP and Twilight) that are blu-blockers; their ability to reduce glare is of not insignificant benefit for people who work outdoors. I think I may have found a solution to my need for shooting glasses and also learned a good bit in the process.
According to Alex, lenses with red in them (as in the light purple lens) will cause your eye's lens to focus behind the retina. Who knew? He said it also makes the eye work harder, potentially leading to eye fatigue, headaches and the like. I wondered about some light blue lens safety glasses I picked up somewhere, thinking they might be good for clay shooting. Wrong again. According to Alex, the blue lens causes your eye's lens to focus before the retina--not what we typically want.
So, are there other choices? Again, according to Alex, a brown-tinted lens contains some red pigment, which helps the problem of near-sightedness (helps the eye's lens to focus behind the retina). Yellow and green lenses help the lens of our eyes focus directly on the retina. This is one explanation for why many sunglasses have a green(ish) tint. These colors also provide greater contrast and that could be a boon to a clays shooter.
What about blu-blocker glasses advertised on late-night TV? They do help reduce glare and Bollé has two lens technologies (known as ESP and Twilight) that are blu-blockers; their ability to reduce glare is of not insignificant benefit for people who work outdoors. I think I may have found a solution to my need for shooting glasses and also learned a good bit in the process.