Optivisor - what mag and do they work over glasses?

nzgunnie wrote:

Already I find my eyes are not what they used to be! (and I'm only 31... ) Cheers Phil

 

tell me about it! I am 51.  I have the 3.5 mag and yes they fit over my glasses.  I find if I use them without the galsses I can get in even closer.  Just depends what I need at that time.  I am near sighted with astigmatism.

Experiences with magnifiers seem to vary tremendously from individual to individual.  I know lots of people have good luck with Optivisors (and similar products; there are quite a few different brands on the market).  I've never been able to get along with them.  My eyes (with or without my glasses) have trouble focusing with them, and they seem to wreck my depth perception.  (For example, if I'm trying to paint a detail on a model and I look through an Optivisor, I can't tell accurately how far the brush is from the model.)

I had an interesting conversation about the latter problem once with a veteran ship modeler, who was restoring a model at Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum.  I noticed he was using an optivisor, and asked him whether it had ever given trouble with depth perception.  He laughed and said, "I learned a long time ago to judge depths with one eye.  I'm blind in the other one."

I was born near-sighted; I have trouble recognizing people from across a room, but for many years I was able to build models with no magnification at all.  (People used to rib me because I took my glasses off whenever I worked on a model.)  I'm 56 years old now, and have trouble focusing both eyes on an object that's close to me.  (Like most other people, I have eyes that have aged differently; any device that provides the same magnification for both eyes simply won't work for me.)  The basic solution to that problem, of course, is prescription bifocals, but even they don't give me the kind of close-up vision I want for model building. 

I've tried quite a few magnifying devices for working on models.  The one that works best for me is this one:  http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=82080

These little gadgets are simple, cheap, and effective.  I also had the optician make me a pair of "single-vision" glasses that match the bottom half of the bifocals.  I leave that pair of glasses, with the "flip-up" lenses attached, in the workshop, and use them only for model building. 

Nothing is quite as good as a pair of young eyes that can focus at short range without magnification.  The combination I've just described seems to be the best option for me.  But other pairs of eyes work differently, and other people find other devices work better for them.  I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money on a magnifier till you've had a chance to find out how well it works for you.

Good luck.

Optivisors are fine under glasses, and if you have learned to look over the top of your glasses, you can get different levels of magnification. They also come with different magnification lens plates that can be changed, although changing them is not a quick process. I find that the No. 5 plate is good for general work—it was what I used when I was your age. Now in my fifties, I use a No. 10 plate most of the time. Another option to consider is the flip-up loupe Optivisor sells as an accessory—very handy when you need to get close for a short period of time. Most of the other, similar products also offer some variety of loupe.

Jtilley, it sounds like you may have mild ambliopia, or some other condition that makes using both eyes through a set of lenses difficult. That, or the Optivisor has an interpupilary distance that is wrong for you. Do you have the same problem with binoculars?

It wasn't until I was using a stereomicroscope constantly, every day, that I learned to see stereo through lenses, because I have mild ambliopia—curable with sufficient training. However, if the interpupilary distance on a device doesn't fit, using it is just a prescription for a headache. 

I have refractive amblyopia (non-reversible, in my case) - have had it since 2nd grade, when they called it 'lazy eye' - my right eye tends to wander  and has trouble focusing on what the left, dominant eye is looking at.  Over the years it has become next to useless, but I can still see out of it - just not at all clearly.  If I close my good eye I can read the "Reply to an Existing Message' text above this message box, but nothing smaller than that size type.

Anyway, back in 1990 I quit building models because my wife was about to have our first baby and I didn't want fumes all over the house with a baby around; shortly after that my eyesight took a nose dive and I mentally wrote off ever being able to build models again. Back in December I got the itch again, and spoke with a friend who is an Optometrist about what my options were in order to improve my vision in general, and for building models specifically.  He told me that the best thing - for me - was to get contact lenses (all previous doctors had told me that due to my sight problem I wasn't able to get contact lenses) and to use a general magnifier, like the kind mounted on a goose-neck arm, instead; that way I'd be able to adjust the distance between my eyes and the magnifier as needed.  With an optivisor, he said, the distance between your eyes and the magnifier is fixed and may not be the best distance for me.  He also recommended against using fluorescent lights in my work area and to just use a regular light bulb (100w) in a regular desk-mounted lamp to illuminate what I need to see.

Mind you, this was all directed specifically at me - it may not be applicable to everyone, so don't take it as a blanket recommendation.  By the same token, though, it makes sense (he is an O.D., as opposed to the eye doctor who told me I'd never be able to use contacts is an M.D. with no specialized knowledge of eye problems - that alone makes me want to listen to him above the 'no contacts' doctor) and I would feel guilty if I didn't mention it here, where it could possibly help in some way.  But I'd definitely talk to an Optometrist (as opposed to an 'eye doctor' with just an MD degree) about your individual situation.

I would've been putting all this info into practice now (well, after work) but the desk I had planned on bringing upstairs this week in order to set up my modeling workspace was stuck down in the cellar over the weekend when it got flooded from all the rain we had here in NJ.  Now I have to figure out if it is salvageable or if I have to start from scratch.  I refuse to take this as a sign that I shouldn't be building models!

I don't recall my optometrist's mentioning ambliopia.  I do have (and have had for many years) astygmatism in at least one eye.  But the big problem is that my two eyes are quite different.  When I was in the fourth grade, if I remember right, one eye was 20/20 and the other was 20/40.  (Both are considerably worse than that now.)  That has the practical effect of making it difficult for me to use any magnifier that doesn't treat the right eye differently from the left one.  Binoculars work fine for me - as long as the right and left lenses can be adjusted independently (as, in any reasonably good pair of binoculars, they can).

If you wear glasses, you'll probably need them to make an Optivisor work for you.  The prescription glasses compensate for any difference between your eyes; the Optivisor doesn't. 

I don't claim to have a thorough understanding of the human eye, but I do know that everybody's eyes are different - and some people find particular magnifying devices more practical than others.  Some years ago FSM ran an article by an ophthalmologist about the different options available.  One of his strong recommendations was a pair of "drugstore-type" reading glasses.  That wouldn't work for me; since the right and left lenses in such glasses have the same magnification, the best I could hope to get from them would be one eye in focus.  But those little "flip-up" lenses from MicroMark (actually I got mine from Woodcraft, which apparently doesn't carry them any more) work great for me.  My prescription glasses cancel out the difference between right and left eyes, and the "flip-ups" magnify the whole picture.

Incidentally - several optometrists have told me that model building is, in fact, excellent exercise for the eyes (at least in my case).  At my last session with the optometrist he used a fancy, high-tech gadget to take wide-angle photos of the insides of both my eyeballs, and pronounced them in excellent health.  Would that the same could be said about the rest of my bedraggled carcass.

jtilley wrote:

If you wear glasses, you'll probably need them to make an Optivisor work for you.  The prescription glasses compensate for any difference between your eyes; the Optivisor doesn't.

Absolutely! What I like about Optivisor is that they do flip up out of the way, but they are also sturdy. They can also be moved down far enough to look through the reading portion of bifocals. The opaque "hood" also eliminates lens glare from the overhead lights.

What drives me nuts is that I wear bifocals—trifocals probably next year. I have an older pair of glasses with lenses that are narrow top to bottom. So I wear those and just look over the top instead of cranking my neck back so I can look through the near portion of my glasses lenses. 

As for the rest of what you said, Jtilley,

Well I've ordered a #4 and extra #7 lenses, (or perhaps it was the other way round, I think they were out of #4s).

I'll let everyone know how I find working with them once they turn up. Thanks to all who replied!

Phil

Phil,

I use my Optivisor just about all the time when I'm modeling.  I'm not even sure what magnification it came with and I've never switched it out, but I end up with six different options depending on what glasses I'm wearing (or not wearing) it with, and whether I use the swing down magnifier loop--- no glasses, reading glasses, distance glasses, and each of those with or without the magnifier loop.  Mostly, though, I use the Optivisor and my reading glasses, without the magnifier loop.  This is one tool that I doubt I could do without at my age.

TomB