How are your eyes guys?

[IanJ]

Hi all,

Well, I'm 50 now......and the days of being nicknamed "Eagle Eyes Johnston" in the electronics workshop are dead and gone. The days of being able to spot a physical fault on a pcb that eluded everyone else are a memory. The days of getting up close and personal (say 4") to a pcb are now just a dream.

All my life I had great near vision without glasses due to my short sightedness but it was when I hit 40 that I noticed by near vision was starting to get further and further from my face, and at about 48 it was starting to become a problem with SMD work. Without glasses I can focus only to about 9" infront of my nose.........thats the wrong side of easy SMD work. With glasses on for my distance vision my arms aren't long enough.

So, I have 2 pairs of glasses now.........general varifocals for mid to distance, and my "computer glasses" which give me "around the room" and because they are varifocals I've had them made with reading glasses magnification (x2 or x3 I think) at the bottom.........perfect for electronics. I can see the computer screen, the workbenchg around me AND close-up & personal SMD work. Prior to them I was swapping glasses and wearing one of those magnifier hat things.

On my wishlist is for the optometry world to come up with soft replacement lenses for the eye. I was at the optician only last week and was told "don't hold your breath"............th optometry world doesn't want it because revenue for reading glasses sales etc will plummet!

I just wondered how everyone else is coping?

Ian.

[EEVblog]

Perfect for me. Apart from the occasional annoying scintillating scotoma.

[Psi]

My eyes are -7.0
I usually wear -6.5 monthly-use contact lenses so as to not 'stress' out my eyes, since i spend a lot of time looking at stuff up close.
I have some daily disposable -7.0 lenses i throw in my eyes for a day if i'm going to be doing something that would benefit from extra sharp distance vision.

[lowimpedance]

Yep glasses and lots of good lighting otherwise just a blur, and of course components are not getting any bigger !

Perfect for me.

Same until around the mid forties then like IanJ you start to notice the focusing issues and when pushing fifty its glasses optical aids and light all the way.

[IanJ]

Perfect for me. Apart from the occasional annoying scintillating scotoma.

Yup I noticed!........On your mailbag vids I often see you getting up close, it's about the only time I swear at you though the computer screen......

Your time will come my friend!

Ian.

[jhalar]

When I was younger and in uni I used to work in quality control inspection of assembled pcbs in a contract assembly place. I could spot a soldering problem, dry joint easily without glasses.
Now at 48 I wear reading glasses at +1.5 (getting close to +2.0) for reading, soldering or anything up close. Definitely going downhill.

[Skimask]

Apart from the occasional annoying scintillating scotoma.

Isn't that a hoot when it happens?
Almost looks like a tear in space-time sometimes.

And ya, my eyes have went to crap in the last 4-5 years.
Went from easily reading 0603's up close and personal to just barely making out the letters on a DIP-40.

[4cx10000]

I use progressive contact lenses and I must admit that it was my ever best decision to choose those instead of ordinary glasses. Especially doing things up side down, meaning that they will move either up to my pan or down and effectively shutting my mouth. The only bad thing is that I still need plenty of light when working with electronics, but what can one expect when the eyes get old   

[Muttley Snickers]

My macro is good but that doesn't help me at all when rabbits are out at 100.
I need to get bigger scopes or they need to make rabbits the size of kangaroo's.

Muttley

[smjcuk]

My eyes are rubbish. I wish I had an astigmatism pot like my scope does.

[PeterFW]

Isn't that a hoot when it happens?
Almost looks like a tear in space-time sometimes.

Hoot? Im unable to do annything for half an hour... immensely annoying.
Paired with a decent amount of floaters and wobbly cornea in both eyes.
Oh... and two giant big blobs in my right  vitreous humour who decide from time to time to go on a yourney that looks like a big cloud is passing infront of my eye, it never gets booring.
Oh... and the crusting and itching and little bits of retina gone funny. Never gets old.

Luckily only stuff far away i can not see proper, up close i have no problems. 

[IanJ]

Whilst we are on it...........I also have severe dry eyes (my win7 desktop theme is dark and the brightness down low), and I have a few retinal vein occlusions (tiny retinal blood clots) in both which give me permanent blind spots in my vision. The brain compensates thankfully as long as the other eye is clear in that exact spot...........thankfully!

It makes electronics an experience for sure!

Ian.

[dexters_lab]

Started with glasses back before my teens, i'm on monthly disposable contacts that you wear 24/7. Thankfully my eyes are stable at the moment and have been for a long time at -4.75 and -5.0 with no astigmatism so contacts work really well for me.

my brother has macular degeneration and my dad has had a detached retina in recent years so maybe things wont be good for ever 

[KJDS]

Mine have been poor since childhood and are getting worse as I approach 50. Just glad I own some decent microscopes.

[Mechanical Menace]

Depends on how tired I am tbh. Sometimes it's great, others I can hardly focus on my monitor.

[Len]

My eyes are fine, but I wish Microsoft would stop shrinking the font size in Windows every year!

[Scrts]

Pretty bad. I am 27 and I need glasses with -2.25.
My parents have saved some money when bought my first PC and a used, shit quality CRT monitor. I had to compensate the price with my eyes...

[PeterFW]

I had to compensate the price with my eyes...

Nope, that is not how you develop bad eyesight...

[MarkL]

I've been wearing glasses/contacts since I was 7 or 8.  My eyes have been stable at -4.50/-4.75, but about 5 years ago I started to need mild (1.00 or 1.50) reading glasses.

I had lasik two years ago and my distance vision is 20/20 with no lenses, which is great because I like to do a lot of outdoor activities.  But my near vision is awful now and I can't see anything up close (meaning a few feet) without reading glasses.  There's also some distortions from the procedure.  It definitely was not a slam dunk.

There was fair warning this might happen, and I still don't know if it was a good trade.  It certainly wasn't on the positive side for fine electronics and computer work.

[hans]

I'm in my mid twenties, and have had -4 to -4.5 since I was a kid.

My near eye sight is quite good. I use 0402 SMD passives on all hobby projects now, but only manage with good light. I still use a magnifying loop for inspection though, as you do.
Working a whole day on close sight is straining for everyone I think, so I try to avoid that.

My far eye sight always needs glasses, because else I cannot read text ~30cm away (quite useless in our modern lives). I don't wear lenses, because I can only imagine it being tedious.

[SeanB]

25/20 vision in the one eye, 6/10 in the other. now it is down to 20/20 and still 6/10. Need glasses to read now, unlike when I was younger. Every bench has a magnifier of some type at it, mostly old lenses from cameras, just to make reading of those flyspecks possible now.  Before I could see that dry joint, now it is a matter of scanning the board with the magnifier to get it visible.

Had a lovely chat with Iqubal my optometrist earlier this month, my eyes are stable, just getting old. Pressure perfect, and I even had some lovely 8Mp images taken of each retina, courtesy of his new Nikon optometric bench. Nothing wrong, just astigmatism in the one eye with poor vision. As he said, that eyeball is shaped like a football. Discussed LASIK with him, and I am not a candidate ( thanks, I can save $5k) as it will make the corneas too thin in the middle, and in any case it only lasts around 10 years on average, after which you need glasses again and contacts have to be hard ones to fit the eye. Rather wear glasses than have the eye pop from a fall.

[steve30]

My eye sight started to get bad when I was about 16. I've been wearing glasses all the time since then, and now I am 24. It'll probably only get worse.

Not sure what my prescription is (I keep forgetting to ask my optician).

[Skimask]

Hoot? Im unable to do annything for half an hour... immensely annoying.
..........
Luckily only stuff far away i can not see proper, up close i have no problems. 

1/2 hour?  Only happens for 10, maybe 20 minutes at most for me.  First time I saw it, scared the hell out of me, thought I was having a stroke or something similar.  "Silent Migraine" my ass.
Sure is a weird picture to view though...

[PA0PBZ]

I always had a good eyesight, never got to measure it but I could read the road signs way before anyone else could. Getting close to 50 I had the same problem everyone else has, so reading glasses are what it takes. Can still read my mobile screen without the glasses when I'm outside on a sunny day (small pupils), but inside looking at anything close... yeah I need the glasses. It's just one of the small annoyances getting older I guess. I really hated it for some time but learned to accept it.

[at2marty]

I'm 48 and started noticing the change at around 46 or so.  I had the option of just getting reading glasses or getting a prescription (my eyes are not the same).  I opted for prescription glasses that I need for reading, computer work or anything small.