[Paddlewise] Prescription sunglasses - polaroid vs tinted

G'Day,

The optician tells me I need reading glasses and that spectacles to correct
for astigmatism would help with .long distance vision. This doesn't surprise
me as I can no longer read the symbols on my VHF radio and increasingly find
it difficult to discern a lumpy sea on the horizon. By the same token my
paddling buddies tend to spot whales and identify birds ahead of me.

In cloudier climates this is probably not much of a problem, but in Oz we need
to wear sun glasses to protect from UV as well as cope with glare. So I'm
planning to buy a set of bifocal prescription sunglasses. To date I've always
bought polaroid lenses as they are way better than tinted sunglasses for
seeing rocks under water. However, polaroid prescription sunglasses are really
expensive and worse still the optician says they make it harder to read
instruments and his bus driver clients won't use them, preferring to use
tinted spectacles instead.

If it turns out that a VHF or GPS screen is harder to read with polaroid
lenses then it would make sense to opt for tinted prescription glasses and to
use cheap polaroid non-prescription sun glasses for negotiating rocks when its
unlikely I'll need to read GPS or VHF.

Does anyone have experience of using prescription sunglasses and whether
polaroid lenses are a problem with LCD screens. Its not something I can test
without buying prescription lenses as I can't read the screens in any case!

All the best, PeterO
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