I have a chance to buy some Oakley polarized fishing-specific "shallow blue" sunglasses for a reasonable discount, but I don’t plan to ever use them for fishing. Is there anything about this tint that would be annoying, uncomfortable, or just make things look strange? Or is it still a good tint for ordinary use? I will mainly use them for driving and for golfing.
Clarification: I know polarized glasses in general are great. I’m specifically asking about the Oakley "fishing-specific" polarized, compared to Oakley’s other polarized tints (non-fishing-specific). Are the fishing-specific glasses still a good thing to use for non-fishing activities? Please don’t respond unless you have direct experience with the Oakley fishing-specific polarized sunglasses.
Yes. They’re great. Polarized light comes off of water and reflects off of concrete. Only polarized sunglasses can block polarized light. they are the preferred sunglasses of ocean lifeguards for this purpose.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes. They’re great. Polarized light comes off of water and reflects off of concrete. Only polarized sunglasses can block polarized light. they are the preferred sunglasses of ocean lifeguards for this purpose.
References :
You can simulate the tint at Oakley’s website if you find the page for the sunglasses or look on their lens tint page (under the polarized category–see the link below).
There’s actually a decent amber/yellow tint to the sunglasses that makes them useful on the water (since it’s technically removing a lot of blues). You may or may not find that annoying for ordinary use. There are certainly regular lenses that have an amber tint to them as well, and the shallow blue tint isn’t as strong as something like the amber polarized — the shallow blue tint is probably closest to the fire iridium polarized tint if you’re familiar with those lenses, and not far away from the tungsten iridium polarized, at least from user perspective.
The plus of that model is the addition of the permanent hydrophobic coating, which is only otherwise available in wire models with the nanowires or titanium square wires. The downside is the tint probably wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’d still probably take it over the tungsten iridium polarized which Oakley is pushing as a "normal" lens recently.
The deep blue polarized fishing model would probably be a bit safer since it’s a more neutral tint, and for golf I’d probably suggest finding something with a G30 or VR28 base, and likely even in a different sports performance model like the radar or flak jacket.
If you don’t mind a "normal" yellow/amber tint to your sunglasses, you should be fine with the shallow blue fishing model. However, if the discount is only minimal, you might want to at least look into different models that don’t have the same base tint.
References :
http://oakley.com/innovation/optical_superiority/lens_tints
http://o-review.com/lens.asp