Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Transitions eye glass?

Anyone ever notice those people with that smoky gray lens tint have a douchey attitude?

My experience with tractor cabs, sunshades on tractors, driving vehicles and even hat brims is exactly this^. On an open station tractor with a sunshade, I would take them off and hold them out in the sun so they would darken, then put them back on for a while. I quit buying them for the most part.

But I got it on the pair of glasses I have on order, simply because my insurance will cover it at no extra charge and there may be times where it will work for me. Doubt I would have gotten it if I had to pay extra.

Dale

Hell yeah Benghazi Tanto all the way

I've been wearing them for a couple of decades, took a couple of days to get used to them, after that they are just like your eyes.

You do have to make sure they are adjusted correctly for you. Read something to make sure you'll be comfortable with where that part of the lenses are right, then look at something in the distance to make sure that is comfortable too. You don't want to have to be holding your head at a weird angle to drive or read.

I wore them for a number of years but quit them. The problem is that they get too dark on cloudy or snowy days. UV is what makes them darken and clouds don't block UV. Snow reflects the UV so you get a double dose when it's on the ground. On a cloudy day with snow on the ground, they can cut 1/2 hour off your hunting time because they're too dark to see. They were giving me eye strain. Now I just keep a pair of clip-ons in my pocket.

If you are talking about progressive lenses, I tried them once too and didn't like them at all either so I went back and exchanged them for my usual lined multi-focal lenses again. What I didn't like about progressive lenses was how you have to move your head instead of just your eyes to stay in the 'sweet-spot' to see clearly.

I had a set of the color transitions lenses. Hated them. I’d rather fug with swapping regular and sunglasses.

I hear they are better now but I’m not interested.

I feel like Sam pretty much confirmed several posts back that he is inquiring about Transitions photochromic eyeglass lenses - three things:

1) once you’ve chosen Transitions, you’ve gone down the plastic lens route, which is fine as well as the proper choice, but for those who are glass true believers, full disclosure. I believe the plastic choices are CR-39, polycarbonate, Trivex and at least one other plastic with a higher index of refraction. The glass photochromic lenses are either Photogray Extra or Photobrown Extra. There have been other glass and plastic photochromics available in the last 35 years - I no longer remember their trade names.

2) As a previous poster stated, UV light is required to change the lens color. If your tractor/car/truck windows do not let enough sun in to degrade the upholstery and plastic accoutrements in the cab (most modern vehicles), the lenses will not darken.

3) The colder the lenses are, the more slowly they lighten. I learned on a winter camping trip approximately 25 years ago that they will not lighten any appreciable amount if the ambient temperature does not rise above XX degrees F (late March overnight in the BWCAW) even after the sun goes down. The lenses stayed “stuck” dark for three days until I got in the van and the cab got warm enough on the drive back to Ely. The potential pitfalls are when you step into your unheated, dark “ice shanty” and promptly set your glasses aside to light the stove and maybe only have a hard time finding them, but could just as easily step or sit on them, and at worst drop them down the hole (shouldn’t happen in a house that has been cold long enough to freeze the hole over). The farming pitfalls I see are driving or walking into an unheated machine shed or barn and suffering some related difficulty from frosted, as well as, slow to lighten photochromic lenses.

It’s two pairs of glasses, but the people who have recommended polarizing sunglasses and separate, clear eyeglasses speak the truth.

For those of you at all interested, glass photochromic lenses use silver halide crystals and their response to light. In glass it is a slowly reversible reaction. In camera film (cellulose, maybe) it is irreversible.

Sam,
I’m nearsighted and have worn glasses daily since age 4.5. My everyday glasses are Transitions and have been for the last six years. My backup glasses are just regular el cheapo polycarbonate lenses from WallyWorld. I also have polarized prescription sunglasses with quality lenses in them. I only occasionally wear contacts to hunt.

Being dependent on eyeglasses to do just about anything, I never had the luxury of wearing non-prescription sunglasses. Instead I took to wearing a ball cap, relying on the brim to shade my eyes. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I had my first prescription sun glasses. Prescription sun glasses are great, but you’ve got to take them off and on, exchanging them for your regular glasses. This increases the likelihood that one or the other will be misplaced or damaged. Prescription sunglasses have their place, on the snow, on the water, in the field under the summer sun, etc. but, I still almost consider them a luxury.

After watching a good friend, who's equally as chronically four-eyed, wear transitions for 7 or 8 years, I figured I'd try them. They're great. My first few sets of lenses were regular poly carbonate with UV and Scratch resistance and Transitions dark brown (Transitions dark is still no where near tinted sunglasses). Transitions are great and I will continue using them in my primary glasses. Regarding coatings, I've made it a custom to avoid the really expensive lenses and coatings because every time I was talked into them, they'd ended up scratched and destroyed. This was always despite renewed reassurances of durability.

Last year I was once again talked into ordering lenses with a fancy coating. I ordered Transitions with Crizal AR lens coatings (link below). The image is strikingly better than through the standard lenses I had made at the same time. Unfortunately, last month I had the lenses replaced after just 10 months because they were covered in tiny scratches, which suck at when driving at night, in the rain at dawn, dusk, or night, or in the presence of bright and/or flashing lights. It cost me half the price of new, but still... The fancy coatings don't seem to hold up, but the view is better.

The only down side to Transitions is they are slow to change in very cold temps, they don't work in the car and for photographers, they'll make you think your camera settings are fugked, luring you into tweaking your exposure settings when you don't remember it's the glasses.

For everyday wear, you'll love em. I still wear a hat and have a full head of hair. I think you'll like them. I'd even get the fancy coatings as long they come with a really good warranty, better than the one I got.

https://www.essilorusa.com/products/crizal

They don't work driving, can't see when you go indoors out of the sunlight for several minutes. This is my 2nd and last pair of Transitions
Someone said get polaroids as a second pair, I think they are right

I prefer to wear contacts with polarized glass-lens sunglasses.

My prescription glasses are polarized, transition lenses that I only really wear at night when I take my contacts out.

They will work just fine as all day wear, but the ability to remove your shades when needed is invaluable. Solid backup though.

YMMV..

Maybe OK for some, but not for those of us who drive motorcycles... On sunny days they make the ditches, forests and all shadows various shades of gray.. Can't discern deer or any other animal ready to cross from a vegetative area.. I had transitions once - never again... Same reason I only wear sunglasses maybe once/twice a year... YMMV...

I had them once and had the same experience. My optimists said they darken from the sun’s UV rays that penetrate thru even on cloudy days - I couldn’t see crap when hunting way before dark.

That was my last pair.

I've been wearing glasses for about 55 years and I've tried them all. I currently wear clear progressive polycarbonate lens with anti-glare coating and progressive brown-tinted polycarbonate Polaroid sunglasses that I wear for driving and skeet/trap/sporting clays shooting. The brown tint really makes the orange clay targets and yellow road signs and lines pop. They greatly increase contrast. My previous sunglasses were the same, but without Polaroid. Polaroid lens are great at reducing glare, which I like for driving and shooting (our skeet field faces SE and so we get lots of glare), but, it makes reading certain displays (cell phone, car displays, gas pump displays etc.) more difficult to impossible. It has something to do with being out of phase. For me, that's a minor annoyance compared to the benefit and safety of reducing glare.

As for any Transitions or photo grey, I've tried them and didn't like them. I much prefer a separate pair of sunglasses. My wife tried them and felt the same way. They are useless for driving so, you're going to need another pair for that anyway.

I tried the photo grey lenses about 40 years ago and didn't like them for the reasons given by a bunch of other users. They don't switch from bright to low light fast enough and you lose light in the mornings and evenings.

These days I use clear lens in a small enough frame size that I can slip good quality sunglasses over top of them. In low light I just put the shades in my pocket and can see immediately. Much better for me than switching between two pairs of prescription glasses.

Not progressives. Transitions are the lenses that get dark in the sun.

Since I had cataract surgery 12 years ago, my eyes are a lot more light sensitive. I don't like transitions at all. I get clip-ons at Wallys and keep a pair in each car and 1 in the house for yard work. I just drop them in a pocket when I don't need them.

Kiss my ass.

Had to edit. You wrote "transitions" I read "progressives."

Not a fan of transitions, either. A polarized lens is MUCH better. A dedicated set of, say, driving Rx glasses with polarized lenses makes for a much better combo than the transitions.