Qestion for those that wear glasses with progressive lenses or bifocals

In the last year my eyes have gone from being nearsighted to also being slightly farsighted. The downside of getting older

I've worn glasses all my life for the nearsightedness and have my diopter adjustment on the camera set for when I wear my glasses. I don't like or want to take them off to shoot and then put them back on when I'm not shooting.

That being said, I'm going to be getting progressive lenses and I'm just wondering how that works when using a camera. Do you just adjust to looking through the top half of the progressive lens and into the viewfinder? Do you find it any harder to see?

I've worn glasses all my life - got progressives about five years ago. Had trifocals before that. Took up photography shortly thereafter, and have never had any problems adjusting.

should also add - I am nearsighted with astigmatism, and macular degeneration in the left eye.

Thanks very much. I literally have no idea what to expect and just wanted to make sure there wasn't a problem.

Im waiting for the day when we can have CCD's fitting to glass eyes, one blink & the image is taken, havent figured out how they would zoom yet though, maybe the glass eye extends outwards?

Bloody eyes, ive worn glasses all my life & still wish there was a way I didnt have to, laser surgery seems to risky to me & the eyes change with age!

Yes, I look through the top. It comes natural to me and the top part of the progressive lens has the benefit of the usable section being the widest, so the sideways tilt of the head/lens doesn't matter.

The midrange section is rather narrow, that's why progressives are unsuitable for computer monitors. I use a standard pair of glasses with intermediate dioptre for computer work.

Hi agedbriar,

What do you mean by "progressives are unsuitable for computer monitors". I've never heard that and when I was speaking with the eye doctor he didn't mention that. I even told him that I work at a computer and need the progressives for computer and reading.

Can you be more specific about this?

The thing with computer monitors is that they are farther than reading distance. If, as agedbriar suggests, your middlerange is narrow, that could put a crimp on your comfortable monitor-reading distance.

Tony

http://www.pbase.com/t​onylong

I also have varifocals and other than very close work (I work in print related business) when I take them off to look at things critically they are fine for dSLR and any other things.

Stating the obvious you need to use an optician/optometrist who knows how take the measurements well to ensure that for normal 'vison' your head is level i.e. not dipped or tilted back to 'see' through the 'right' area.

HTH

The usable (sharp rendering) surface of a progressive lens has an outline similar to an hourglass. Wide at the top, narrower (but not quite chocked, of course) at midrange and wider again at the bottom.

Midrange viewing is rather limited as far as horizontal field of view goes. Depending on monitor size and viewing distance the left and right edges on the monitor may be less than optimally sharp, which is disturbing. One tends to move the head left-right sligtly to bring the edges into good focus.

My optician warned me about that. It happened 10 years ago, when I had my first progressives (Rodenstock). Five years later I got the Zeiss' I have now and there was no progress in that department. Maybe they solved the problem in the last few years but I haven't heard any good news yet.

In general, progressive lenses take some time to get accustomed to. You should be prepared for that. I had bifocals before but that didn't help me as much as they say it does. But once you get accustomed, the progressives are great indeed.

I've just put on my progressives to verify that I'm not talking nonsense.

Actually, I see the same problem in the vertical direction too, only that this isn't due to the "hourglass outline" but rather to the change of dioptre value along the vertical axis of the lens while all parts of the monitor are at the same viewing distance. This latter one is not an issue when reading or writing text, but it's disturbing when viewing a picture full-screen.

To recap, when working at the monitor with progressive lenses, only the central part of the monitor is fully sharp, unless your correction is a minor one, I suppose.

Edit: My lenses go from +0.75 D (top) to +3.50 D (bottom).

I wear progressives all the time. When Shooting, the glasses come off and go on top of my head (sometimes I remember that they are there ) and I have the diopter adjusted for my right eye, which is the stronger of the two.
Footnote:
I have had cataract surgery in both eyes - and the implants which replaced my lenses (the real ones, not the eyeglasses) are optimized for color. When I had one eye bionic and one natural, I could see the difference in colors - think about raising the saturation in PS across all channels just a small amount and you will know what I saw. Now that both eyes are implanted lenses, the color is more even.

FYI - similar to Agedbriar - I found it took almost two weeks to adapt to the progressives. Walking was the hardest part, due to the fact that my eyes were not yet "trained" as to which part of the lens to look through. I had been warned about that, but I still groused and complained about it. Once I got used to it, there is no problem at all. You will want to be more careful around stairs for the initial 10 days or so.

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll be getting the progressives in about a month or so and will speak with the optician about all the different aspects to make sure he understands my needs.

TMR... I've worn progressive lenses for the last ten years and I have astigmatism. When looking through the viewfinder I look through the dead center of my lenses, same as when I look at my monitor or when I'm driving. I don't know about other progressive lens wearers, but my optometrist knows that I take real estate photos and work in front of a computer monitor all day. The only time I don't look through the center of my glasses is when I look down at my desk, keyboard or some reading material I'm holding at chest level.

I have the diopter on my 400D set at the neutral position, neither positive nor minus adjustment.