I also wear contact lenses for birding. I find them much more convenient
when using binoculars/scopes. I never really mastered using binoculars with
glasses and taking glasses off whenever you want to look through them just
gets too irritating. I have experienced the slightly blurry vision between
blinks but it doesn't happen often enough to be a problem. However, I've
never really noticed any real problems with the image quality looking
through my binoculars or scope.
The one thing I did notice when I first started wearing contacts was that
the images through my binoculars and scope was relatively less clear because
I bought them before I got glasses/contacts but my eyesight was below
average already so when I'd look through the binoculars at the shop, the
image was much clearer than I got with the naked eye
What type of contact lenses do you use? I use soft ones (silicon hydrogel, i
think). I'm not sure whether that would make a difference or not.
Hope that's useful
Cheers
John Graff
From: "Peter Shute" <>
To: <>
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Contact lenses vs glasses for birding
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:00:06 +1000
Does anyone here use contact lenses for birding? I'm interested in your
comments about them.
I wear glasses for short-sightedness. My binoculars have enough relief
to work with them, but it's still a pain for various reasons, including
glare coming in the sides, eyepieces never being in exactly the same
place in relation to my eyes, etc.
I also find that my off axis vision (not peripheral) is blurred enough
to make identification of birds flying from the side difficult until I
can turn my head towards them - often too late. This is because I'm
looking through the edges of my glasses, where such simple lenses have a
slightly different strength.
So I'm trialling contact lenses. My initial observations:
- Without binoculars, they're far superior to glasses, but erratic. A
blink can mean slightly blurry vision till the next blink. Off axis
vision is as good as on axis vision, and I'm much better at identifying
fast flying birds, and at spotting birds that aren't in front of me.
- With binoculars, the glare and inconsistent eyepiece placement is
eliminated, but I'm finding the image quality erratic. I can't put my
finger on what's wrong. I think at times I can see more clearly, but at
other times I'm searching for perfect focus and not finding it. I keep
fiddling with diopter settings, then setting it back how it was again.
Shutting one eye to set the diopter setting is pointless, as that upsets
the lens in that eye for when I change eyes - I've taken to doing it by
putting one hand over the objective instead. And do you think the birds
wait around while I do this?
Is this how it is for other contact lens wearers? If so, I'm not sure
that I'll persist with them, despite the advantages.
Perhaps I'm seeking a level of visual acuity that's not obtainable. My
optometrist says I have better than 20/20 vision with my glasses, and
much better than what's legally required for driving.
Peter Shute
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