[Leica] Vision correction

[kleinp at BATTELLE.ORG (Klein, Peter A)]

Tina:  Sorry about your vision issues.  It is indeed a royal pain.  I've
had to change glasses and contacts every year for the past few, as I've
gone through the (ahem) transition period from my forties to fifties.
The only good thing about it is that I'm getting less nearsighted as the
years go by.  I can now read comfortably without glasses--which was
never the case before about 3 years ago.

My solution has been a combination of glasses and monovision contacts.
The contacts have enabled me to avoid using two pairs of glasses at
work.  They are also a boon for Leica shooting.

Since I do a lot of computer work, I have both a pair of bifocals for
general use, and a pair of ordinary glasses for computer work (the
prescription for the latter is focused at arm's length for easy screen
reading).  

This is fine at home, but at work, I am constantly shuttling between my
own computer, other people's, and servers.  I hated having to carry
around two pairs of glasses (and cases), and constantly switching
between them.  I ended up getting monovision contacts.  My right eye is
for distance, my left is for reading.  This works most of the time.  It
took me a couple of months to get used to it, but now I'm very happy
with it.  

I supplemented the monovision contacts with a little trick I figured out
myself.  When I'm sitting at my own computer for any length of time, or
for fine work, I use a pair of 1.25x reading glasses, from which I've
removed the left lens.  This corrects my right eye for the screen, my
left eye is already corrected by the contacts, and all's well with the
world.  Carrying around one pair of readers is a lot easier than
carrying two full-sized pairs of glasses.

I don't wear the contacts on weekends or at night, unless I'm going to
go out shooting my Leica.  My particular face shape and prescription
causes me to need more eye relief than most people.  On a .72x Leica, I
can see the entire 50mm frame at once, but I lose the edges of the 35mm
frame.  After I got contacts, I found myself using my 35mm lenses more,
and I had to crop less.  :-)

When I'm out hiking, on vacation, or in places where I won't have easy
access to a clean rest room, I stick with the glasses. It avoids the
kind of trouble you got into with contacts in Central America.  For
scenic shots, it's no problem.  Most of the time, I keep my glasses on a
neck cord, focus with glasses on, then let the glasses dangle while I
frame.  In a pinch, I can focus the camera reasonably well even without
glasses (try that on an SLR without a diopter!).  

If I ever have to give up contacts entirely, I might get a .58 body, or
a 35mm finder.  The new torpedo-shaped V/C finder has just enough
"minification" to be right for a glasses wearer like me.

As the old song goes:

My eyes are dim,
I can not see,
I have (Hey!) not (Ho!) brought my specs with me.  ;-)

--Peter