Colored Shooting Glasses Yea or Nay ??

H

Henry V

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Is there an advantage to using colored shooting glasses? If so, what color or colors work best? Most everyone I see using them say they help. This comes as no surprise since if they don't think they help they don't wear them. What is the straight scoop??
 
I remember reading years ago an authorative article commissioned for the ISSF (IUT in those days) which said in effect that yellow tinted lenses (used in low light conditions of reduced contrast) reduced the available light by up to 30% but in every case tested, those who chose to use them shot better with them. They weren't suggesting that it was a placebo effect, but that the enhanced contrast was more important to vision than the available light. That's probably quite logical because our eyes accommodate with little adjustment to light variations that would equate to several f stops on a camera lens.

I found that as I got older, I could use iron sights better if my corrective lenses were ground out of polarised material. The downside of that is that I can't see mirage as clearly thru my spotting or rifle scope, which is important to me when shooting 1200 yards.
 
Seems like I read somewhere that yellow-orange glasses increase resolution by 10-15% because that color blocks the blue spectrum. I do not believe that it is a placebo. I really like mine and can see a sharpness difference between my regular glasses and my shooting ones. BTW, I wear Varilux bifocals, but had the optometrist grind my distance prescription for the shooting glasses-works much better!
 
I have this color also

Jeff Stover said:
Seems like I read somewhere that yellow-orange glasses increase resolution by 10-15% because that color blocks the blue spectrum. I do not believe that it is a placebo. I really like mine and can see a sharpness difference between my regular glasses and my shooting ones. BTW, I wear Varilux bifocals, but had the optometrist grind my distance prescription for the shooting glasses-works much better!
Click to expand...

One of the members of our club is an optometrist. He has been trying various colors, etc and prefers the yellow / orange. I wear trifocals and my every day glasses are Transition lenses. I had him make lenses in the yellow/orange and give me my distance correction in my off eye and close vision on my sighting side so that I can see what I am doing on the bench. I think this is the way they fit contact lenses but am not sure. The magnification on the sighting side is only on the bottom of the lense.

Anyway, I believe I can see better in all light conditions when wearing the yellow/orange.

P.
 
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For bench, try something in the "rose" color. It will contrast quite well. We have a guy we shoot with that has suffered some significant diabetic eye issues relative to clarity-color absorpsion and after filters of every kind, the rose shooting lenses have made a tremendous difference particularly at winter league matches with lots of glare.
 
Word of caution. I have noticed with the cheaper glasses, when I have sighted in without glasses and then shoot for match with glasses impact changes. My thoughts are that the added lense changes the placement of the image. Much like mirrage, you are aiming at what you percieve to be the target. Take the cheap glasses off and you are back on target. Keep this in mind. Also the way the glasses fit your head, you want to be looking through the same place on the glasses everytime, and you want the glasses at the same angle to the scope, and same distance from the scope. When adding glasses you are essentially adding another lense to the scope that is WAY movable. I'm sure many problems have been blamed on scopes rather then glasses. Someday someone will glue the scope to their head, to prevent this, but it's not going to start with me. Maybe Jackie has some insight here.

Paul
 
So Fred - - -

What is the bottom line here. Other than being interesting, I wasn't able to determine much from those sites. :eek:
 
Pete in Surry

My intent was to provide background data to help all of you select filters to suite the conditions you’re facing. If it is not an economic burden it would be good to have a collection of filters so that you could optimize the benefit.

The testing that I did suggested that most subjects found slightly better results when the filters were used on the objective end of the scope. Not enough better though to justify the higher price of the larger filters than the ones for the eyepiece.

It was also far easier to use polarizesr on the eyepiece due to the convenient access for adjusting the angle for greatest benefit. Although a dual polarizer worked better for clarifying the image, the lost of image brightness caused all subjects to prefer a single polarizer. All subjects found the single polarizer on the scope to provide better results than using polarized glasses.

Personally I have found all the color filters and both polarizers block too much of the available light from my 36x scopes. I'm hoping that the March scopes I have on order will provide enough more light transmission that I will be able to use filters for some marginal seeing conditions.

Also note that due to large variance in color perception among individuals, "individual results will vary" a lot!
 
I recently inquired about colored glasses for rifle shooting, e-mailed Decot in Phoenix and they suggested a lite Gold color.

Gary.
 
Thanks Fred

I have never had any training in reading those kind of charts. Thanks again. P
 
shooting glasses

The rule of thumb that I use for shooting glasses. Choose the lightest colored lens that allows you to shoot with out having to squint or adjust your eyes to cause out of focus. The objects and contrast are sharpest when your pupil is small. Enough light to keep your pupil small but comfortable to shoot.
 
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