TargetTalk

Hi All,
I am currently shooting at a temporary range where the lighting is not well arranged. There is a strong white light just behind the shooters and then a dark alley in front and another strong spot light on the target. When I look a at my pistol sights, it looks as if I am staring at dim headlights. The light bends too much around the foresight and makes it very difficult to focuss on it.

I was looking to use some colored glass to reduce this glare. I am unsure which is the best color to use. Would Red help?

Thanks

I'd be tempted to try an iris first, although it's hard to know from the lighting situation. If you don't have an iris and want to see the effect in a rough format, just take a target patch or the sticky part of a post-it and punch a tiny circular hole in the middle, just 2mm or 3mm is fine. Then place the hole on your shooting glasses in front of your shooting eye and see if that fixes the problem.

Your eye's iris is probably wide open because of the overall dim lighting, and this greatly accentuates the problem of light bending around the front sight in my experience.

Thanks for that tip. It does help closing the iris but I was thinking some colour filter would make it less strainous on my eye as it has to focus very hard with the iris trick. I used a polarised glass (that helped a little bit). Any other suggestion please. I have also used the yellow night driving polarised glasses. that didnot help much.
Thanks, John

You want a +0.75 diopter lens, which is basically a very low power pair of reading glasses (so low that you can't actually buy them that weak).

The issue is not the light, the issue is that you are probably in your early 40's and presbiopia is setting in, where the eye lens is starting to get hard, and your ciliary muscle that controls focus is struggling to focus up close. making the front sight blurry.

In the interest of transparency (no pun intended), I sell glasses and lenses for shooters, but if you do a search in this forum about focus on the front sight, you will see that your case is not unique.

I sell safety glasses with +0.75 diopter lenses in them for $35, which are your cheapest option out there. Next cheapest, though not as good, is to go to Wallgreens. Their reading glasses start at +1.0 diopter, and you can get a cheap pair for $20 - these are not safety glasses, and they are 0.25 diopters stronger than the optical math suggests as ideal, so you might see that you are now getting a fantastic front sight, but that the target is starting to blur slightly more than you want.

Art

Art Neergaard
ShootingSight LLC
www.shootingsight.com

I had à smilar situation at my home range when shooting at night after a long day at the office. I bought shooting glasses, Olympic champion, and got a +0.50 lens made. Such a difference. But actually I find the lens a bit weak. Should probably have started with a +0.75

To be correct " You need a correction of +0.5 to +0.75 over your normal distance script"
So it should include any normal correction + or - including astigmatism.

Sorry - yes, it is +0.75 added to your distance vision. For some reason when I read the OP, I got the impression you were not wearing any glasses for vision correction, in which case +0.75 is the correct answer. If you are wearing glasses, it is +0.75 over that distance correction.

You also need just the +0.75 if you wear contacts, as I do.

I just had my eyes examined, and my right eye has gotten a half diopter more nearsighted. I knew this, because I've spent considerable time since my last eye exam putting weaker and weaker lenses in my shooting glasses.

Now, when I get my contact lens fixed for good distance vision, I will have to switch everything back. I have a couple pairs of glasses (one for indoors & one for outdoors), and also had to add a lens to my target rifle rear sight. Depending on how well they hit the correction, there will probably be some more experimenting involved.

Now that I'm in my 60's, this sort of nonsense has slowed down, but in my late 40's, I was changing lenses all the time as my eyes shifted.

Thanks to all for your great suggestions.. I will use a +0.75 lens to see if that helps me.

To update.. I tried with a +1.00 I could find in a department store along with a blue filter as well. Both of these helped... the +1 was definitely helpful in helping me focuss more on the front sight and the blue filter cut the dim glare and made the sights more blacker and crispier. thanks for all your comments. I learn something new here all the time.

If glare is really what you want to remove then the best thing is a polariser. Filters dampen down the light level - which sounds like it would make it even more difficult to see the sights properly. The polariser will remove or significantly reduce the 'reflections/glare'.

Rob.

I have not seen all possible lighting conditions, but I experimented with making custom polarizers for rifle sights, and was very disappointed in the results.

1. Polarizers do not cut down glare while keeping the fundamental image unchanged, they cut out 70% of the image brightness. THe glare is cut more than the rest, so the resulting contrast is better for a naked eye, but when you combine it with a small aperture, you will likely find that the loss of 70% of the light will require a larger aperture, which means you are giving up depth of field and focus.
2. Most target lighting scenarios do not have reflections, which is what causes glare. If you look at water surface with light reflecting off it, that's glare. A front sight is in silhouette with no reflective surfaces, and no glare. A target is non-reflective and is perpendicular, so there are no reflections there either. Net, giving up 70% of light for a situation that likely has no glare is not typically a winner.

Duck hunting? Yes, it is perhaps a benefit. Target shooting, not.

Gwhite wrote:I just had my eyes examined, ...

FULL MARKS! This is the correct answer. In fact, it is a no-brainer.

If you have never had your eyes examined, make an appointment with an optometrist and have it done. They are the experts.

S/he will determine what it takes to bring your eyes to "normal" sight. (You may find that reading or general use glasses would help for day-to-day vision as well.)

Then pose the question about shooting glasses. I go equipped with information about how far from my eye to the front sight of my pistols. One optometrist asked me to bring in the pistols and tested a variety of lenses until I was satisfied. We discussed the use of apertures and coloured lenses as well. I then selected suitable frames (I took my ear protectors as well) and we had the prescription made up for both lenses at the focus distance. When I get the glasses back, I put a patch over the left lens (my preference for sighting - my left eye is too strong for both-eyes-open sighting). There is little difference in cost between 1 and 2 lenses being made and it is there if I want to try sighting with both eyes open.

I've been doing this for over 30 years now and I know that my contribution to correct sighting is not a variable.

By the way, far from optometrists thinking that you are wasting their time, they enjoy the challenge of something new - a bit different to the mundane parts of their jobs.