Hi David,

I've been myopic since birth, near as I can remember (in the 20-200
range), and have gone through two phases of binocular using techniques.
For the first 15 or twenty years, I just lifted up my glasses and put the
binocs to my eyes, with the glasses perched on top, ready to drop back
down onto my nose when I lowered the binocs. That worked fine for me - it
might take some getting used to for someone who is new to wearing glasses.
Being myopic is no disadvantage when using binocs - they compensate nicely
for weak eyes. You can also focus on closer things than people with
normal vision can. So there's even an advantage to being a nearsighted
birder.

In the last year or two, I have come to realize that I can see a sharper
image by looking through my glasses AND my binocs. That is because I have
fairly bad astigmatism, and the binocs can't correct for that. The key to
putting binocs up to your glasses and looking through them is in the
binocs themselves. I have a pair of Leitz 7x42s with extreme eye relief.
I can look through my glasses and the binocs and see perfectly - the image
is the same as without the glasses. In fact, with the little rubber cups
rolled back, it is hard to use the binocs WITHOUT glasses, as you have to
suspend them in space an inch from your face. With my wife's compact
Nikons, however, it's a different story. Even with the little eye cups
folded back, it's hopeless to use them with glasses, as you only see part
of the image, and that only if you hold them just right. So the range of
eye relief among different models of binocs is huge.

I know I didn't answer your question about contact lenses directly, but in
case the contacts don't work out for you (they didn't for me), you CAN
still ram the old binocs up against the eyeballs.

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu


On Tue, 7 May 1996, David Wright wrote:

> Tweets,
>
> I am wondering if any of you have first-hand experience birding with
> contact lenses. I recently acknowledged that I am becoming a tad
> nearsighted and purchased eyeglasses (gulp). With glasses on, distant
> things *are* sharper, and I can ID some quasi-distant birds that I had
> to usethe bins on before. But using bins with eyeglasses is just not
> going to work -- the view just isn't as good (even having good eye
> relief) as having your eyeballs jammed right up next to the oculars.
>
> But what about using contact lenses when out in the field all day (I see
> better for reading, close work without the glasses, so full-time contacts
> are impractical)? Do contacts in any way compromise the view through
> bins? (It is at least conceivable that the optical quality of contacts
> is less than perfect.) I am wondering if I will be better off using my
> naked eyes in the field and squinting at the distant stuff, or using
> contacts and having better distance vision (with the condition that
> any compromise of quality of view in bins is unsatisfactory). If
> contacts do work well, is any particular kind (e.g., hard vs. soft) best
> (or worst) for this application? Insights of anyone having experience
> with this would be a major help (by direct e-mail if you think this is
> not a question of general interest).
>
> David Wright
> Seattle, WA
> dwright at u.washington.edu
>
>
>