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By now, I doubt there is anyone left that isn't well aware of the
critical importance of wearing sunglasses to
protect your eyes from the damaging UV effects
of the sun. However, did you realize that on the
water you are actually increasing those damaging
effects by one hundred times because the sun is
also reflecting at you from countless directions
from the waves. Every angler on the water
fishing, including customers, needs to
understand that polarized sunglasses offer
additional protection as well as added comfort
for your irreplaceable eyes.
The Basic Science:
When we see color is determined by a combination of
reflection and absorption of light
(either sunlight or artificial light).
Black would be maximum absorption while
white is maximum reflection of light. Bright sun
light (being reflected basically white)
bouncing off objects will hit our eyes
from horizontal angles and can send too
much glare for our eyes to process.
Flat horizontal surfaces, like
the hood of your car, also reflect
tremendous amounts of white glare. Water
is an almost flat horizontal surface
with waves which can
act as many multiple horizontal surface
angles and increase the glare
tremendously.
When light strikes a surface, it becomes
polarized, which means that the photons
in the light are all vibrating in one
direction, instead of in random
directions. The light waves travel from
"pole" to "pole" along that plane. This
phenomenon is what causes the glare
reflected from a car window or chrome,
or from a wet pavement. This glare
distorts the true color of objects and
makes them harder to distinguish. It
also causes a mirror-effect on wet
surfaces, so that objects below the
water's surface cannot be clearly
distinguished.
How Polarized Sunglasses Work:
Think of the blinds on a window at home. You can
tilt the blind at different angles to filter the
amount of light coming through your window. A
polarized lens is designed with filters at a 90
degree angle to reduce vision of only the glare
but not the object.
Polarized
lenses
have a laminated surface containing
vertical stripes. Similar to the window blind,
polarized sunglasses will redirect and scatter
the glare making it easier for you to see the
object.
Quality Issues: So what’s the difference between polarized
sunglasses and why do the prices vary so
widely? First, I would like to say that
you don’t have to purchase $200
polarized sunglasses to enjoy the
benefits of polarized sunglasses. I have
owned $15 polarized sunglasses that
allowed me to see well into the water
and catch more fish as a result.
However, those $15 sunglasses did have a
few issues that I would have not had to
deal with if I had known a bit more
about the subject.
The first polarized lenses were made of
a polarizing film that was sandwiched
between two flat sheets of glass.
Because glass lenses are so heavy,
however, the advent of plastic and
polycarbonate materials, which are
lighter and thinner, made the glass
lenses less popular.
One of the problems with early polarized
sunglasses was referred to as “delamination”, when the
polarizing film separated from the
pieces of glass or plastic. This problem
has been solved with modern lenses, as
the plastic can be melted and poured
into a mold in which the polarizing film
has been suspended. The plastic then
hardens around the film, creating a
solid material, rather than a layered
one.
Polycarbonate lenses are created in a
different manner, since polycarbonate
lenses are injection molded and the heat
from the process would destroy the
polarizing film. For polycarbonate
lenses, the polarizing film is applied
to the front of the lens and covered
with a scratch-resistant coating. This
process means that polarized
polycarbonate lenses are the thinnest
and lightest polarized lenses available.
Optician's Choice
takes pride is
providing the very best quality
polarized sunglasses at affordable
prices. They also offer personal
customer service that is the best on the
web.
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