Choosing the best tint for your sunglasses
Different coloured tints are available to enhance vision and improve visual comfort for many activities. Sunglasses are very important as they reduce glare and protect against harmful ultraviolet radiation.
The main tints available can broadly be divided into neutral grey, polarising, yellow-brown, green, red and photochromic.
Neutral Grey
This filters out all wavelengths of light by an equal amount, and so colours appear more natural looking than with tints of other colours. Grey tints are good for activities where subtle colour differences are important, such as golf, mountaineering and skiing.
Polarised tints
Polarised tints are good for reducing glare from reflected light bouncing off surfaces such as water or wet roads, making them a good choice for fishing, water-sports, driving or cycling (on wet surfaces). However, polarised lenses might also reduce important details in skiing or golf.
Yellow / Amber tints
Yellow or amber tints help to increase contrast by blocking out the blue end of the visible spectrum, resulting in a reduction of blue light scatter. They enhance differences in contour and make things appear brighter in low light levels. This makes yellow or amber tints good for shooting, snow sports, driving or cycling.
Green tints
Green tints help to enhance the background, which makes them a particularly good choice for golf, tennis and some forms of shooting, where the object needs to show up against the background.
Red tints
Red tints enhance objects at the red end of the spectrum, and can be used in clay-pigeon shooting where the target is orange, in skiing to give contrast to the changes in reflected light, or in motor sports to reduce the reflected glare from the road.
Mirror tints
Mirror tints limit glare, increase absorption and reduce infra-red, thus reducing the build-up of heat. Mirror tints are good for snow sports, water sports, cycling and running.
Anti-reflection coatings
Anti-reflective coatings minimise lens reflections, especially from the back surface, and are recommended for racket sports, fishing, shooting and archery.
Photochromic tints
In photochromic tints the darkness of the tint changes according to the light levels, most commonly between around 20% to 80% transmission. Generally, two photochromic colours are available, brown or grey. Photochromic lenses are good for sports played in variable light levels, such as golf or tennis.
The following list gives a summary of suggested tints for different sports and activities:-
Cycling………………………………………..................polarising, yellow / amber
Golf………………………………………….....................green, neutral grey, yellow / amber, brown
Shooting……………………………………..................reddish-brown, orange, yellow to brown, green
Skiing………………………………………....................brown, red / orange, neutral grey
Tennis………………………………………...................green
Fishing………………………………………..................polarised
Motor sports…………………………………..............polarising, yellow, red
Water sports………………………………….............polarising brown or grey
Football (and fast moving ball sports)……..amber
Running………………………………………................green, neutral grey
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