bifocal contact lenses?

[ron_hiner]

Ok, time for the ultimate photography accessory... contact lenses.

If anyone here is older than 45 or so, you know the problem I've got... the eyes don't focus as well as they used to. My distance vision is perfect - without correction. Up close, its a different story.

I had an eye exam today... my doctor recommend concentric bifocal contact lenses! This was a shocker... I'm used to constantantly putting on and taking off my glasses... I put them on to look at my camera's menus and LCD's, and remove them to look through the finder.

Aparenty the contact lenses have concentric rings of varying correction (kinda like a fresnel lens), and the brain sorts out the data that comes out the optic nerve -- the result is great clarity near to far... or so the sales pitch goes.

Anyone here have experience with this type of contact lens? How does your viewfinder look? Is manual focussing accurate? There are also progressisve bifocal contacts -- are they different from concentric from a photographer's point of view? So many questions.

Ron

 

[Asher Kelman]

I'd do a search on this product!

Sounds fascinating.

I'm wary of foreign objects on my membranes!

Besides, what's wrong with Giogrio Armani frames?

Asher

 

[ron_hiner]

retina picture

I thought I may as well post a portrait my eye doctor took of me today.... This is the retina of my left eye. Those are my eyelashes in the lower left corner. The dark spot in the center is my macula -- the point of greatest 'sensor density.' The green spot is where the optic nerve and the blood vessels connect to the projection surface. She gave me two 12mp TIF files -- this is a cropped reduction of one of them. (The red part? Well, she forgot to turn red-eye reduction off, I think. <g>) I don't know why the green part is green -- but the light used for the shot was pretty much that color.

Photo credit: Dr. Barbara Manion, Westport, CT






edited for word that can bring in the wrong search patterns

 

[Asher Kelman]

Were you injected with a dye?

That is not what a retina looks like normally?

Something new to me!

Asher

 

[ron_hiner]

No -- no injection! That's scary to think about. No drops either. She said that this a perfectly healthy and normal retina.

She did use an application to view the images that gave her her independant control over the 3 color channels -- she ran each of them up and down when looking at the 2 images (I only posted one -- my left eye). She also used a gamma control that brought lots of detail out where my image looks near black. The image above is much darker than what she had on her screen... but my post was true to what was in the TIF file (although it appears to have much more noise than the TIF file).

The light was floresent green -- so the WB is anyone's guess. But the red background is pretty much the color one gets with 'redeye' -- but a stop or two darker (or three).

Ron

P.S. Still no feedback on bifocal contacts? Seems perfect for a photographer. I have a hard time workign the tiny buttons and menus on my camera without my glasses, but I take them off to look through the viewfinder. I must have put on and taken off my glasses a hundred times today, and dropped them twice. I'm hoping the contacts are going to be half as good as the sales pitch -- then I'll be happy. I ordered them... I'll post what I learn.

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Still no feedback on bifocal contacts? Seems perfect for a photographer. I have a hard time workign the tiny buttons and menus on my camera without my glasses, but I take them off to look through the viewfinder. I must have put on and taken off my glasses a hundred times today, and dropped them twice. I'm hoping the contacts are going to be half as good as the sales pitch -- then I'll be happy. I ordered them... I'll post what I learn.

I have never heard of them before, but then I can shoot with my glasses on or off (I am nearsighted). But I would be interested in hearing about your experience. Have you ever worn contacts before?

enjoy,

Sean

 

[Ken Tanaka]

Ron: I have had these multi-focal contact lenses for a few years. My very close vision (< 18 inches) is actually quite good. But it falls off quickly. Honestly, I prefer using my Varilux eyeglasses, particularly with my Sillouette flexible frames. After using contacts for many years I've just become tired of messing with them. With respect to photography I thought that they would be more effective at helping me see the viewfinder and screen. But they aren't. My glasses are much better. The contacts are ok for general use although you will have to become accustomed to reading with them....it takes some practice.

That's just my experience.

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

Lasik for me...gone bad...

Well, I had LASIK 5 years ago. And I got over corrected. So I did not need reading glasses when I started, but I had a reaction and I now need both reading glasses to see far away in one eye and a distance lens still in the other eye that did not get a full correction.

And I am back to wearing contact lenses but the good part is they are very comfortable and disposable daily. All this was because I picked up a camera again after many years of using a point-n-shoot. I am very lucky that I am corrected to 20/20. No one told me that doing LASIK causes you to need reading glasses if you did not need them at time of surgery.

So with contacts in, I still need to do the on-off to read those menus and particularly the white balance settings. I've never been comfortable shooting with glasses on - I have progressive bifocals if I am not wearing contacts.

And I did try the bifocal contacts. My distance vision and my reading vision were not as sharp as with the distance contacts in and readers on when needed.

In the first year they did so many of those photos of my eyes at UCLA - it was a new technology then. Amazing that they can take those photos.

 

[Mike Harrold]

Where is Don Cohen when we need him?

Mike

 

[Will_Perlis]

"No one told me that doing LASIK causes you to need reading glasses if you did not need them at time of surgery."

Kathy,

That's 'cause it might not be the case. It depends mostly on the amount of presbyopia, the usual need for reading glasses. I wear contacts set up for distance and now need reading glasses for close-up work on top of those; Lasik wouldn't change that.

In any event, no matter the origin, needing to go back and forth between corrections is annoying, and I'm using "annoying" as a substitute for several obscenities. I'd really like some way of hitting a button to see all the camera info in the viewfinder where it's set up for clear viewing at the apparent focusing screen distance.

 

[Dave New]

I've used varifocal progressive lenses for several years, now. I was originally very nearsighted (-8, -8.25), but as my eyes aged and became more inflexible, I've need positive diopter correction in the bottom half of the lenses (currently +2) for close focussing/reading. I also have astigmatism (-1.5, -1.25), with the cylindrical axes at almost right angles to each other in the respective eyes. For years, the eye doctor only wanted to correct for the astigmatism in my master eye, fearing headaches or other problems if both were corrected. But, eventually, we tried it, and after an initial adjustment period, all was well.

Guess this is a long way of saying that any kind of effective contacts and/or laser surgery doesn't look very doable in my case, due to the complex corrections required, and I have a *very* strong aversion to anything touching my eyes (glaucoma tests are murder for me, even though it's "just a puff of air").

One breakthrough for me though that we tried successfully with my most recent prescription, was to move the 'center line' for the beginning of the diopter gradation up some from the usual lower placement on the lens. This was to help with my daylong usage of large screen monitors (two 19" at the moment) that are only about twenty inches from my eyes. The usual gradation on varifocal lenses was causing my neck strain, from having to tilt my head up to be able to focus more closely. The downside of having the gradation moved up is now sometimes having to tilt my head down a bit to clearly focus far objects. So far, that's not been a real issue, and with the current setup, I can see both the LCD screen on the back of the camera and also through the viewfinder, without having to constantly remove my glasses.

An alternative solution to having the gradation line moved, is to get a pair of single-vision glasses that are permamently set for whatever distance you spend most of your time viewing your computer screens. Being cheap (and my company insurance only pays for one pair of glasses) I opted for the 'one size fits all' solution, and it's worked quite well for me.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Dave,

Bifocals mean headaches when using a computor or else watching movies from the front row. The reading part or the junction cause problems. For movies I sit further back so I'm not looking upwards.

I just got prescriptions for the computor screen and leave pair nearby. I can actually drive with them, but it's not good if you need to see the signs far away on the freeway, LOL!

Asher

 

[ron_hiner]

update -- they are in!

Ok, the contacts are in... five hours yesterday, and two the day before that.

First impressions:
1) its a whole lot easier than dealing with eye glasses. (I shoot with my glasses atop my head, where they regulary fall off).
2) No apparent impact on distance focus. (Dr says my distance is 20/15 & 20/20 with lenses in)
3) Close focus is a good improvement, but not perfect. Small text is now quite readable without glasses, but the text is not crisp and sharp as it is when I wear my glasses. This might be a prescription issue, or it might be a limitation of the technology.
4) the lenses themselves have a slight blue tint to them -- I would guess that is is intentional, otherwise they would be completely invisible while soaking in fluid. I don't notice any change in the color of my world, but I need to know if my brain is adjusting white balance for me -- this will impact my color correx while printing. Too soon to tell.
4) First photo shoot today... I'll be watching for the green autofocus indicator more so than I usually do.

It will take a couple days to get used to, and the Dr says the prescription will change in a month.

Ron

 

[Don Cohen]

Just saw this discussion (I was in Costa Rica at the time of most of the original posts). And I am an Ophthalmologist, and also in the "presbyopic" age range, so have experience on both sides of this issue!

Regarding contacts: I would say that in general bifocal contacts are not well received by a majority of patients, but there is a subset that seem to adapt to them fairly well. The concentric ring approach is the most common, providing "simultaneous" images of both near and far, so the person just pays attention to the one that is needed. Contrast sensitivity can be decreased, and people often complain of just not seeing well at any distance. But as I said, there are some who do pretty well with them.

Another contact lens option is "Monovision" where one eye is used for distance, the other eye for near. For somebody like the original poster, whose distance vision is fine without correction, it would entail wearing a single contact lens in one eye in order to let them read with that eye. He would use it in the eye that is not used for viewing through the camera. This is also not well tolerated in general, but a subset of patients do seem fine with this. Depth perception can be impaired, as well as overall clarity of distance vision, while near vision seems to be pretty good even though it's only with one eye.

Personally, my eyes are just so sensitive, that I can't even get contacts in my eyes, otherwise at least out of curiosity, I'd have tried one or both of these options.

Regarding LASIK: a professional surgeon should be very clear about what LASIK does, and doesn't do. If you take somebody who is nearsighted in both eyes, they can typically read without glasses or contact lenses. If they have LASIK in both eyes, their distance vision may end up being fine without correction, but if they're over the age of 40-45 or so, they will need glasses for reading sooner or later. LASIK doesn't get rid of presbyopia, the loss of the accommodating power of the human lens that is inevitably associated with ageing. So there is definitely a trade-off here - you do gain one thing, but you give up another.

Some people opt for monovision LASIK, with one eye left nearsighted, to avoid needing glasses for reading. This is a compromise, and basically the same approach as with monovision contact lenses. My concern here is that while the contact lens approach is easily reversed (just stop wearing them), the LASIK isn't reversible quite as straight readily.

Finally, regarding the fundus photograph - the green color is just an artifact of some type, a reflection from the light used to make the photograph. There is no normal green color like this in the human eye, and this I'm confident is just an artifactual reflection. This type of approach can be used to 'highlight' the nerve fiber layer, to assess for glaucoma or related conditions. Those are the arc-shaped fine bands that appear in this photograph. The red color is normal, and is the source of red-eye in photographs. But here it is normal and expected.

Hope this helps, and good luck to the original poster!

 

[Ray West]

A Helicopter pilot I knew, some years ago now, used to use a monocle. Screw it in to read his maps, open eye, drop out quick, for binocular vision when needed. Sometimes, the old ideas do the job.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Don Cohen]

A Helicopter pilot I knew, some years ago now, used to use a monocle. Screw it in to read his maps, open eye, drop out quick, for binocular vision when needed. Sometimes, the old ideas do the job.

The idea of using a monocle like this has definitely occurred to me frequently in recent years, but I wasn't aware of anybody actually doing it! Highly functional, though. Maybe we can bring in a come-back!

Best,

 

[Ray West]

Hi Don,

On this side of the pond, this guy is pretty well known - Patrick Moore http://sirpatrickmoore.com/biography/awards.php

Best wishes,

Ray