Once upon a time choosing which sunglasses lens to buy was pretty straight forward but the sheer range and variety of options available today means taking a long hard look before making that crucial choice.
Sunglass lens technology has come a long way in recent years with new materials coming onto the market all the time.
Tinted lenses
This is the simplest choice and cosmetics will play a big part in what lens tint colour you choose. It is simply a matter of choosing the colour and the depth of tint that suits you best.
But there are some other considerations to take into account here. Much depends on the conditions n which you expect to wear the sunglasses. OK, bright sunlight is the obvious candidate here but this is not always the case.
Certain colours can enhance vision in certain conditions and the choice may not be dependent only on cosmetics. A light blue tint, for example, may look good outdoors but it not good when glare in a factor, such as when sailing and water id reflected upwards off the surface.
A blue tinted sunglasses lens can even increase glare in the big outdoors so choose this tint mainly as a fashion item for streetwear and in the city. For general outdoor holiday wear, brown tinted sunglasses often make the best choice.
Brown filters out the blue glare from water and sky and can also help to increase contrast so brown tinted lenses are good for general outdoor use and brown is a popular choice for general holiday sunglasses.
Grey is a good alternative to brown, retaining decent colour differential and reducing outdoor glare. For this reason, a neutral grey tint is probably the most popular choice, not just for the big outdoors but for night driving too.
Many also prefer a green tinted sunglasses lens. Green tinted lenses tend to be darker and may be preferred by those with sensitive eyes. Despite blocking out plenty of glare, they can give the highest contrast and good colour balance.
Yellow and orange tints are the most popular choice for those who are into snow sports such as skiing and snowboarding. A yellow tinted sunglasses lens will soften the harsh white–blue light of pure snow while at the same time increase colour contrast and depth perception.
Pink and rose tinted sunglasses can help relieve eyestrain and are more often used by people who use computer screens a lot. Colour perception may not as accurate as other tints but they do combat eyestrain and are good for use in brightly lit indoor environments such a sports arenas.
Many sunglasses these days will sport a graduated tint in any of the above colours. With graduated tints, the colour is strongest at the top of the lens and gets progressively less tinted until the bottom of the lens is quite clear.
Graduated tint lenses are good for reading, or when carrying out some task that requires good perception when looking down but plenty of shade when the eyes are raised such as driving a car or boat, or operating machinery of some kind in bright sunlight.
Photochromic or transition lenses
This type of sunglasses lens has a special coating that reacts to sunlight. Often referred to as transition lenses they become automatically darker as you move into the bright light and lighten when you head out of the sun.
The reaction time of photochromic lenses can vary but the transition usually gets underway in less than 60 seconds. They continue to get darker, or lighter, for several minutes until reaching the optimum tint for the lighting conditions.
The coating is usually activated by ultraviolet light, which is, in fact, invisible, so the darkening and lightening effect happens even on cloudy days and depends only on the amount of UV light that hits the lenses.
Photochromic lenses usually retain a small amount of tint, even in dark conditions. They can be very useful for those moving about a lot in varying light conditions such as indoors and outdoors but they are not much use for driving as headlights pass much too quickly for them to react. Even in daylight, the car windscreen may itself block UV light so the photochromic lenses may be nowhere near as effective when behind the wheel.
Polarised lenses
Popular with drivers and sailors, polarised lenses are particularly effective in cutting out glare from large surfaces such as the sea and sky but with little or no loss of definition. Unlike standard tint lenses which reduce light at any angle, polarised lenses will cut out light waves travelling in the horizontal plane, but let vertical light waves pass through.
This not only reduces glare but will actually improve both depth and colour perception. Vertically aligned light is much more important visually than the horizontal light that is the main component of glare.
The glare of the sun on the sea and other flat surfaces can be highly polarised and, in some conditions can be almost totally horizontally polarised. Likewise, most reflected light is horizontal and, with this filtered out by polarised sunglasses images appear clearer.
Polarised sunglasses are particularly good for driving as the light from bright reflections and the road surface tend to be horizontally polarised. Polarising lenses give higher definition vision for driving, removing the effect of dazzle and reducing eyestrain.
Take care however when choosing polarised lenses. Cheap polarised lenses tend to cut out less light, some as little as 10%. High quality polarised lenses will filter out more than 90% of the horizontal light.
Part of the article have been borrowed from the internet with due thanks to the owner of the content.
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