At 01:58 PM 5/8/96 -0700, Chris Hill wrote:

>
>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.
>

My eye situation is similar to what Chris has described and I've been using
the same technique for my 27 years of birding. True, it may take some time
to adjust to this technique but it has become automatic for me. Looking
uncorrected through binocs only works if you have little or no astigmatism.
Wouldn't it be cool if someone made astigmatically ajusted binocs?

Regarding the use of contact lenses, after using both hard and soft versions
I found that their correction was not as good for me as glasses. For
example, with glasses my sight can be corrected to better than 20-20, but
with contacts it is somewhat less than 20-20. This can make a real
difference when it comes to picking out minor field marks. It was
especially frustrating to me to be birding with my contacts and to know that
my sight was not as good as if I'd worn my glasses.

Scott



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Scott Ray Washington Birder Newsletter
Yakima, WA PO Box 191
email: scray at wolfenet.com Moxee, WA 98908
http://www.wolfenet.com/~scray/
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