Mar 10, 2010

New Prescription Glass

frostier / Thoughts, Rants and Musings, When Everything Fails / Essilor, Hoya, Nikon See Coat, Prescription Eyewear, Zeiss / 1 Comment

After Andy left the optical stores, I have no other place to turn to. In between getting a designer label frames and a good lens, I procrastinate. Mainly it was due to lack of funding and secondly, I still can survive with the current spectacles I am wearing.

As time goes by, the coating wears off and eventually it was a pain to drive at night. The glare caused irritations on my right eyes. Finally after 3 years or so, I decided to source for a new place to get my glasses done. In between recommendation, I went to the few optical stores. It is kind of weird in Malaysia that most of the optical stores doesn’t have an optometrist to get the readings.

After I get my prescriptions from a few, I settled down with one I am comfortable with. Instead of looking at the frames, the first thing I was looking at were the lens. Compared to my knowledge many years back, the were huge range of different branded spectacle lenses. Not just Hoya. There are also Essilor, AO, Norville, Nikon, Pentax, Rodenstock, Sola and Zeiss and much more. I was told that Hoya no longer having the most market share. Which I used to be told of every time I asked my friend, Tony what lens should I look out for.

Wingz got his new prescription glasses earlier this year with Zeis. He added that it comes along with 1 year warranty. Proof of warranty? The warranty card. Even my Nikon SeeCoat comes with a warranty card. Guess it means nothing because according to the few sites I visited, it was said that the lifespan of a glasses is between 12-18 months. Trying to source about the warranty and how it applies, I realized that the Nikon prescription lens in Malaysia are under Essilor Malaysia. This blog author highly recommended Essilor lens 2 years back.

Essilor has many brands for various needs. For example:

* Airwear which provides light, thin and high impact-resistance lenses
* Transitions which provides photochromic lenses (clear indoors and at night but darken outdoors)
* Varilux which provides progressive lenses (I still don’t need it yet :p)
* Crizal, a type of coating innovated by Essilor, which provides no-glare, scratch-resistance and dirt-resistance properties. Crizal is generally available on Airwear, Transitions and Varilux lenses.

Personally, I have satisfying experiences with Airwear and Transitions lenses. As mentioned, these lenses are applied with Crizal coating too.

Essilor Airwear

Essilor AirwearWhen I was wearing Nike Flexon rimless prescription frame, I needed a pair of lenses which must be lightweight, thin and durable. Airwear meets all the requirements, and at the same time the polycarbonate material provides impressive impact-resistance properties.

I was given a piece of Essilor Airwear lens, and a piece of brand X polycarbonate lens, together with a hammer (yes, it was a real hammer). With just an easy smash, the brand X polycarbonate lens was broken. However, to my surprise, I couldn’t break the Airwear lens at all, yes, not at all. After a few smashes, there were scratches on the Airwear lens, but it didn’t break!

Because of the Crizal coating, Airwear lenses are very easy to clean too. Even with smudges, the smooth lens surface makes it extremely easy for cleaning. After years, the lens surface is still as smooth as it was.

Essilor Transitions

Essilor TransitionsThe disadvantage of wearing prescription frame is that those cool sunglasses are always practically unreachable by me, unless I wear contact lenses. Besides, I don’t like the design of prescription frame with clip-on sunglasses too.

So, the best choice for me is a pair of prescription lenses which is transparent in indoors or at night, and darkens its tint when exposed to UV. And yes, I’m also a happy user of the Transitions photochromic lenses.

These are the advantages of Transitions that have won my loyalty for 2 pairs of Transitions:

* very sensitive, and fast in reacting to even a small change in sunlight condition
* doesn’t turn yellowish over time; still remains as true clear transparent at indoor even after 2 years of usage

Sensitivity to light is a very important evaluation factor for photochromic lenses. I’ve seen friends paying the same price (comparing to Transitions) for other brands of photochromic lenses, and yet not as sensitive to UV density.

So now, regardless of the lighting situation, I don’t even need to bother about it, as the variable tint of my Transitions works very well. I no longer strain my eyes when posing for outdoor photos too!

I’ve introduced Transitions to 3 friends (including blogger Jason Lioh), and all are very satisfied with it.

I guess what’s different back then and today is most of the expensive lens comes with warranty. Even Carl Zeiss have their own websites to keep track of the prescribed lens they made here. Anyone with the warranty card can register here. I told Wingz and he kind of boastful about it.

I found one website which is very useful to get more understanding about the lens available in the market. In the end I find it too technical and they don’t have complete lens inside. I can’t even find Zeis Clarity 1.6 AS Lotutec. Guess there are too much types of lens available in the market.

Once decided the lens, it is time to choose the frame. I opt for the cheap frames. To me, I find it about the same. There’s not much different between a designer label frame with the good one without designer label. It just a name stick on the frame. That’s all. The optician recommended me a frame similar to the Tag Heuer Reflex. He said that the frames came from Korea and have the same features what Tag Heuer is having. I tried both and it is almost identical, which is very hard to differentiate. The good thing about the Korea-made was it cost only 40% of what the price tag shown on Tag Heuer.

I save the frame for the next time. Opt for something conventional.

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