Specialty Eyewear

Explaining Specialty Lenses

Industrial/Occupational Lenses: Special occupational designs allow eye care professional to customize lenses for virtually any occupational or hobby visual and/or safety requirements. Be sure to talk with your Metro Vision specialist about the tasks you do at work, and what you do in your spare time.

Computer Lenses:  If you’re viewing a computer video display terminal for more than two hours a day, you may need variable focus lenses. These lenses help correct vision for the specified length of your eye to the computer screen and the immediate vicinity. A variety of computer-specific lenses include special filters, tints and anti-reflective properties.

In some cases, computer users may have a vision disorder that wouldn’t be a problem if they weren’t performing a demanding visual job such as one working at a computer. In this case, they might need glasses just when they use the computer. Normal glasses such as bifocals or progressive addition lenses don’t work well for computer work. Learn more about Computer Vision Syndrome.

Sports Lenses:  Tens of thousands of sports eye injuries occur in the U.S. each year, demonstrating why sporting lenses are so very important.

Any sport where there are flying objects such as balls have potential for eye injury because of the high speeds these objects travel. As extreme sports participation continue to rise and more people participate in other sports activities, the number of eye injuries is sure to rise. An important and convenient fact is that sportswear today does not hinder performance in any way.

Features for sports eyewear that you should look for are:

• Lens should be made of polycarbonate, the strongest lens material
• Scratch-resistant
• UV protection
• Padded and cushioned around brow and bridge of the nose to prevent eye guards from cutting skin upon impact
• Correct size, since improperly sized sports frames can be hazardous
• Come in many designs, colors, and treatment for every sport
• Safety is key with sports eyewear, so tough, high-impact resistant lenses are commonly recommended

 Learn more here about why sports vision is so important.

Shooting Lenses:  Most shooting activities endanger the face through close proximity, so the use of shooting lenses is required. Flying objects, wind, sun, dust and much more can get into your eyes during your shooting sport. At Metro Vision, we offer over 35 different brands of shooting glasses, with between 5-50 different models to choose from.

Here are some tips for choosing your pair of shooting lenses:

1. Polycarbonate is the best lens material currently available

• weighs less than glass
• high-impact resistance rating
• excellent UV protection (tints don’t protect your eyes more in this case)

2.  You need adequate UV protection. Glasses that absorb at least 99% of UV radiation will have the following labels:

• blocks 99% or 100% of UV rays
• UV absorption up to 400nm
• meets ANSI UV requirements

3.  Information about specific lens colors:

• smoke, gray, gray-green: help block glare without changing color perception for all types of weather
• amber-brown: improves contrast and depth perception; good for an all-around choice
• yellow or orange: improve contrast and heighten visual acuity, block haze and blue light; the brighter the yellow, the better for night vision
• purple-vermillion: Enhances orange of the target against a background of tall trees

4.  Some manufacturers offer glasses with interchangeable lens

5.  Constructed with lightweight material such as plastic, aluminum or titanium

6.  Adjustable frames

7.  Nose pads

Prescription Diving Lenses:  Allows everyone to see clearly underwater. Any type of prescription can be made for diving masks.

• Can be made for the entire mask or
• A prescription lens can be inserted in between the mask and your eyes. Older models of this type would sometimes have water leaking in around the lenses, but newer models are water-tight.
• Other customizations may be available as well.
• Dive masks that are made with specific lenses for your eyes and measurements will of course be more expensive than pre-made masks.
• UV protection will also be very important for this type of mask, since the sun still shines through water and can reflect off objects in the water.
• Sometimes masks are offered in different tints as well.

Swimming Goggles:  If you wear you a prescription, there are only a few manufacturers of prescription goggles.

There are two prescription options:

• Step Diopter: A pre-fabricated goggle in spherical prescription lenses analogous to half-eye reading glasses. You pick the goggle closest to your prescription so that you can see, but it won’t be perfect.
• Custom Goggle: Like your regular glasses where custom prescription lenses are put into the goggles.

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Lenses Available at Metro Vision