Polarized Glasses

[gibsygoldtop]

I may be in the market for a new pair but not entirely sure I need to be... I have a pair of Pepper's right now from REI. I am just hearing that the more you spend on a pair, the more you see in the water.

What are your thoughts?

Also, what about glass lenses being better than plastic ones?

You can obviously rack up a ton of money in them but in the end I want to know, is polarized the same across the board?

 

[jabink84]

I have had alot of different brands, wiley x, costa, smith, gargoyle. I have had oakley straight jackets for 2 years now and will buy nothing else from now on.

polarized are not the same across the board. my wileyx jakes can go half the distance as my oakleys

 

[Swattie87]

No, they're not all the same, but I wouldn't necessarily say spending more money gets you a better lens. I've had $200 Oakleys and $40 Cabelas house line. The Oakleys were better, but not 5x better.

I'm bad with sunglasses...last two pairs got left on my truck tonneau cover and I drove off with them there...duh. For fishing purposes, you should be able to get a good pair for under $100 IMO. In terms of value, I like Native's line...can often find them on Sierra Trading Post in the neighborhood of $60-70, and they're good lenses. I like dark lenses for driving, normal wear, etc, but gotta admit brown work better for looking in to water. YMMV of course.

 

[CLSports]

I have also had many pair of polarized glasses. I think oakley's are overpriced. I like Kaenon, Scott and Native. All good, but I think I like my new Kaenon with the copper lens the best.

I agree with Sierra Trading Post having many of these brands in the $60 -$70 range. That is about all I am willing to spend since I generally end up scratching the lenses at some point.

 

[mrchunk]

I'll second the Kaenon's. I have 2 pair now and the optics are super sharp compared to my Smiths. They say glass lenses do in fact have better optics but I'm not willing to spend the extra dough for them and they are somewhat heavier.

 

[hendeylathe]

I use a pair of Smith Optics Lochsa w/2.5 bifocal. My eyes aren't what they used to be at reading distance. I like them very much and can't fish without them.

 

[csoult]

Tried on a lot of them Costa Del Mars and Arnettes were the best. When with the Arnette for about $100 less.

 

[IdratherbePhishing]

I have natives. They're great but I wouldn't go with a dark lense. I have the brown/amber lense.

 

[barbless]

I sell in the sunglasses market on eBay. Always have a wide variety on hand, including nice examples of polarized glasses. I have a pair of Smith Folsom glasses with amber lenses in very clean condition up on eBay right now, along with some purple fitover Jonathan Paul glasses with gray lenses.

I also have a pair of H20 Optix with polarized amber lenses, blade-type sunglasses with removable lenses. Alas, in this case one of the lenses has a tiny crack that leads it to pop out of its nosepiece slot. So I'm keeping them off the market until I can fix them or find a new lens.

I'm always picking up offbeat brands to sell, but I've had exceptional luck for my own case in the last few weeks. I've had Lasik surgery that corrected me to 20/40- good enough to drive unaided- but for best results I still need a mild prescription, about -1.25. And in the past two weeks, I've managed to turn up two pairs of Maui Jim amber lens polarized glasses with that exact prescription. Everything snapped into focus. Outstanding detail retrieval, and not too dark.

One pair, light wire rectangle frames, sort of look like chick glasses to me. But they're lightweight and comfortable, and do they ever filter out glare. I can count the pebbles on a stream bottom with them. So if you see a tall skinny dude on the stream one day sporting some metro-sexual looking wire frame amber shades, what can I say...I'm a cheapskate.

 

[Kilwell]

I really like Fishgillz brand with high definition lenses for the price. As an added bonus, they float. If you drop them in a stream you can at least watch 50 bucks float away faster than you can catch it!

 

[pcray1231]

I'm good to lose or break about a pair a year. So I don't go much above about $40 on my polarized glasses. Got my last pair at the eye center in Walmart, on my way to the jam, because I sat on the old ones the week before.

I've had good pairs like Oakley's. They're better, but not much, unless you're comparing them to the super cheap sub $10 crap. But once you get into the $20-$40 range, the lenses are pretty sharp. I think the biggest difference is scratch resistance and coatings on the lens, so they might not hold up as long. But again, I'll lose em or break em before the lenses get too bad anyway.

Color is a bigger deal to me. Amber blows gray out of the water.

 

[pwk5017]

Yep, amber/copper is the way to go if you are fishing. I believe it narrows the color range you perceive, thus increasing contrast. The higher the contrast, the better you "see", because now that trout's shadow stands out to you more etc.

I have costa 580s and oakleys. I dont think glass is superior to poly and the weight alone in some models makes glass a poor lens choice(freakin heavy).

Vision can be a big part of the game, dont go el cheapo.

 

[Phish_On]

Costa del mar..... That is all

 

[gibsygoldtop]

Good replies, thanks.

Is it common to still have glare on the water with all polarized lenses?

 

[Swattie87]

Is it common to still have glare on the water with all polarized lenses?

Yes, to varying degrees. Better lenses will do a better job at reducing glare than crappy ones, but there likely will still always be some glare, epsecially in broken water where the angle of the light hitting the lens off the water is constantly changing.

 

[pcray1231]

Yep. In theory, anyway, any polarizer will cut out 100% of the glare provided the surface of the water is perfectly flat. In reality, that almost never happens! Much of the reflection comes from a surface that is not perfectly flat.

Now comes the engineering part. You can make lenses to cut out more or less glare. So, one lens might cut out reflections at up to a 5 degree angle to the horizontal, whereas another cuts out reflections at up to 20 degrees. The trade-off is that, the more glare you reject, the more good light you also reject, hence the lens will be darker and you'll find yourself taking those glasses off earlier in the evening.

If you wanna see what angle your glasses handle up to, find a good flat reflection, stare at it, put the glasses on, and then tilt your head. Well, it's often easier to remove the glasses, hold it at arms length while looking through, and then rotate the glasses.

 

[jdaddy]

CLSports wrote:
I have also had many pair of polarized glasses. I think oakley's are overpriced. I like Kaenon, Scott and Native. All good, but I think I like my new Kaenon with the copper lens the best.

I agree with Sierra Trading Post having many of these brands in the $60 -$70 range. That is about all I am willing to spend since I generally end up scratching the lenses at some point.

I will 3rd this. Make sure you check fatwallet.com or slickdeals.net to find the most current discount code for Sierra Trading Post. if you can't find a current code send me a PM.

Kaenon glasses are absolutely amazing. My fav was Rhino but the ocean took them away from me. They were around $250 at the time, however AC Hilton gave them to me for free. Still hurt to loose them. I have the Klemm line right now in grey for driving and ultra bright light fishing conditions but my go to for fishing are the Kaenon Klemm with copper lens. Again, absolutely amazing and I think I got them for around $60 shipped. Klemm is a larger frame if you have a fat head like me. For super cheap glasses Orvis has a newer line that is $50. I just got $25 off $50 coupons in the mail today effectively making them $25. They come in a cool brook trout print bag to protect them from scratches when stored.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Get those straps for yor glasses. Cheaper than new glasses or diving in after them. I have to agree that Kaenons are really good especially on the Gulf with all it's glare. Anyone have glasses with interchangeable lenses? They might be a good alternative to carrying a couple of pair afield as I do.

 

[bigjohn58]

I have Oakleys and love them. I had Under Armour ones but they didn't seem to fit my face well and I always ended up with a glare. Honestly I'd try on glasses at a store then go online to buy them. I have Split Jacket Oakleys, the one's with the interchangable lenses (I have black iridium and brown) for like $100 I believe...they retail for $260 I'm pretty sure. As for seeing better in the water with spending more money I'm not completely buying that. I've had cheap pairs that I can say I saw just as well in but scratched up a lot easier then the pair I have now.

 

[lestrout]

pcray1231 wrote:
Yep. In theory, anyway, any polarizer will cut out 100% of the glare provided the surface of the water is perfectly flat. In reality, that almost never happens! Much of the reflection comes from a surface that is not perfectly flat.

Now comes the engineering part. You can make lenses to cut out more or less glare. So, one lens might cut out reflections at up to a 5 degree angle to the horizontal, whereas another cuts out reflections at up to 20 degrees. The trade-off is that, the more glare you reject, the more good light you also reject, hence the lens will be darker and you'll find yourself taking those glasses off earlier in the evening.

If you wanna see what angle your glasses handle up to, find a good flat reflection, stare at it, put the glasses on, and then tilt your head. Well, it's often easier to remove the glasses, hold it at arms length while looking through, and then rotate the glasses.

Another way to check the angles would be to get another pair of polarized glasses and turn it 90º to the one you are wearing. Then rotate one of the pairs slightly. At the 90º position, the 2nd pair should black out, since essentially all the light will be blocked. Then you can change the angle slightly to see the effect Pat alludes to.

tl
les