Photochromic and tinted lenses

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pm Post in Eyeglasses

Currently, photochromic lenses are available in materials including glass, polycarbonate and high-index. There are also various tints and brands for your selection.

PhotoGray and PhotoBrown lenses are equipped with silver halide throughout the lens, so that the whole lens will darken when exposed to sunlight. It is exciting that the strongest, thickest part of the lens will be darker than the thinner part. And the higher the prescription, the darker the lens will be. The Corning Medical Optics also provides photochromic lens brands such as Thin & Dark and SunSensors. SunSensors lenses are made to change within 60 seconds to a uniform color density throughout the lenses.

Rodenstock’s ColorMatic Extra uses a mixed photochromic dye and offers several tints. Another mid-index plastic photochromic lenses is Sungray lenses from Hoya Lens. KB Co. manufactures Transhades photochromic lenses in glass and plastic, and in gray and brown. These photochromic lenses are also polarized to reduce glare.

Transitions lenses are another major player in the photochromic lenses realm. They are applied with advanced variable-tint technology so that they will darken rapidly outdoors. Materials of Transitions lenses include regular plastic, high-index plastic and polycarbonate. Regular photochromic lenses do not darken behind the windshield since UV rays are blocked out. Transition offers Drivewear, which resolve this problem.

Photochromic lenses also have medical applications. People with various ocular pathologies can get visual improvement from Corning’s CPF family, which consists of glass photosensitive lenses. Corning’s GlareCutter can also benefit patients with slight or moderate light sensitivity.

While photochromic lenses are special colored lenses, tinted lenses are constantly colored lenses, which mean that the lenses will never change their tints. Both plastic and glass lenses can be treated with various colors of the rainbow. Plastic lenses acquire tints through a warm color bath, during which the lenses achieve different shades of darkness according to the bath time.

While fashion tints for cosmetic are usually light pink, brown or gray, tints on sunglasses are mostly darker colors such as brown and gray. Tints can either be solid or gradient. Some unusual tints are also used. Yellow tints can block out blue light, which is helpful for target shooters. Green is sometimes used in sunglasses, as an alternative to common tints such as gray and brown. Red tints flatter some people with special tastes.