What are Polarised Lenses?

What are Polarised Lenses?

We’ve all experienced glare in our daily lives. Whether that's spending the day at the beach, driving in a car with the sun reflecting off the dashboard or on a boat with the sun illuminating the surface of the water, glare can be a real nuisance.

Glare - What is it?

When light reflects off of a surface, its waves travel in all directions. Some light travels in horizontal waves, while others travel in vertical waves. When light hits a surface, typically waves are absorbed and/or reflected in a random manner.

However, if the light hits a reflective surface (such as water, snow, cars or buildings) at just the right angle, some of the light becomes "polarised". This means that vertical light waves are absorbed while horizontal light waves bounce off the surface.

This light can become polarized, resulting in glare that can interfere with your vision by striking your eyes.

What are Polarised Lenses?

Polarised lenses do what no other lenses do - block blinding glare. These specialist lenses block 100% of harmful UVA and UVB light, as well as enhancing your visual acuity, colour contrast and visual comfort.

Laminated with tiny vertical stripes that only allow vertically angled light to enter the wearer's eyes, polarised lenses eliminate glare because the horizontal light waves cannot bypass the vertical filter.

Sunglasses and camera lenses are often polarised to reduce glare from surfaces, such as light reflecting off a lake or the bonnet of a car.

How Do Polarised Lenses Work?

When light bounces off of a surface, its waves tend to be strongest usually horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. This is called polarization.

Polarised lenses contain millions of parallel rows of tiny iodine crystals or dichroic dyes, so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye.

Similar Venetian blinds, the horizontal rows of iodine crystals contained within the polarised lens block out horizontally polarized light waves, letting only vertical light waves reach the eye polarisation blocks as much as 50% of the light passing through a lens. This results in clearer vision with no glare.

What are the Benefits of Polarised Lenses?

First used by photographers, drivers and fisherman, and photographers, polarised lenses have a wide variety of benefits. These include reducing glare that can ease eye strain, improving contrast, visual comfort and acuity and blocking blinding glare.

Polarised lenses are also very handy for fishermen who need to see under the surface of the water. The lenses are also used by photographers to enrich captured images as it provides far more contract than non-polarised lenses.

What are the Disadvantages of Polarised Lenses?

While polarised lenses can prove very useful, they do have limitations. Due to the polarising stripes reducing the amount of light entering the eye, these lenses should not be used at night. This is because the lenses will never be 100 per cent clear, even those with low polarisation levels.

Polarised lenses can also cause distortions to LCD screens. This means some mobile phone screens, computer screens and televisions can be difficult to view.

Different Polarised Lens Options

Polarised lenses are available in nearly all lens types, materials, coatings and designs, such as polarised varifocal lenses or polarised high index lenses. These can be added to any frame type, such as rimless glasses, or designer frames like Ray-Ban prescription glasses or Emporio Armani glasses.

How to Buy Polarised Lenses Online

Treating yourself to polarised lenses can help enhance your visual acuity, colour contrast and visual comfort, as well as blocking out 100% of harmful UVA and UVB light. Purchasing polarised lenses online is also incredibly simple.

Simply visit Onlineopticiansuk.com and add polarised lenses a new or existing frame through our lens builder.