New Sun Glasses help

[pcray1231]

I wouldn't mind having a look at your LLI's sometime. When I got my MJ HT's, I was down to those two. There have been moments of buyers remorse, but moments where I think I made the right choice too. The MJ's aren't a true low light lens, more like a cloudy weather/winter/canopy lens that isn't completely useless when the sun is out either.

A side by side comparison would be cool.

 

[krayfish2]

I may come to jam with my pooch on Friday to drink beer in the pavilion (same as in the past). I'll bring them up. Big bass is basically a sunglass whore. Very knowledgeable on Costa and Smith products. He's got 14 pairs or some crazy number. Lol

 

[pro4mance]

Kray, you have a spot to crash if you need it

 

[krayfish2]

Appreciate it Norm but Im leaving for the Delaware that Saturday morning. I can't hang long. Swing up after work, BS, drink a beer or two and head back home to hook up the boat / load the car.

 

[Big-Bass]

Not quite 14 Kray...LOL...

Half a dozen...you bet!

 

[pcray1231]

I'm getting there, lol. Got a pair of costas and about to pick up a second pair of MJs. That'll give me 3 pair north of $200, lol. Plus a few pair of cheapos for yard chores and such. Weedeating calls for poly for the eye protection and cheap cause your gonna muck em up.

Lots and lots of Cabelas bucks.... Haven't spent more than $50 of my "own" money. Don't need much, and at least I'll use these.

 

[Andreas]

It is somewhat amusing that fisherman can think of 4 pages of stuff to say about sun glasses. I think it means we take our toys very seriously.

 

[krayfish2]

If you're spending $100, $200 or $300 on a pair of glasses, only to find out they give you the same performance of your current pair, you'd be pizzed. Yes 4 pages is a lot but some of that blame goes to the manufacturers that make 12 frame widths, 3 base curves and 26 lens types. I just wanted a fixed vlt pair and they were harder to find than they should have been. Lol.

 

[pcray1231]

????

95% of sunnies are fixed VLT's. Of course, ranging from like 5% to 70%. But fixed nonetheless.

It is somewhat amusing that fisherman can think of 4 pages of stuff to say about sun glasses. I think it means we take our toys very seriously.

I think it is MUCH stranger that we could talk just as long about rods and waders.

IMO, towards actually catching more fish, sunglasses and tippet are probably the 2 most important pieces of gear in fly fishing. A good pair of polarized glasses is paramount to being able to read water. And it's a highly technical piece of equipment. And, unfortunately, the industry which makes them sees itself as a fashion industry moreso than a performance one.

 

[krayfish2]

Tippet? According to article Afishinado posted, tippet size had no impact on a fish in eating the nymph offered. I buy that as a majority of my nymphing is done on 3x - 4x and catch plenty of fish. The author also noted that 6x was just as visible as 3x.

 

[pcray1231]

Yes, not in terms of visibility. But the same article talked about drift being of utmost importance. And tippet has a huge effect on drift.

Not just size, of course, but properties.

I don't recall if it was Humphries or Harvey, but one of those guys did an experiment of tossing live bugs into the water with small lengths of obscenely thick tippets glued on, and watching fish gobble em up. The point was visibility didn't matter, it was all about drift. The very same person was asked what the biggest advancement in gear was over the years. The answer was tippet.

Those aren't inherently opposing statements.

I too do much of my nymphing with 3x and 4x. But with nymphs and especially dries, there's no question paying close attention to drift characteristics is vital. Playing with tippet type, size, and length is most certainly one of the levers you can pull. Material advancements in tippets have been hugely beneficial to fishermen over the years, and there's still quite a range of options on the market. Those differences, IMO, mean far more to catching fish than whether a Sage or a Cortland is being used to cast it.

I'm a dry fly nut, but generally the main thing I'm paying attention to in terms of tippet is suppleness. Tippets vary HUGELY in this department, and a more supple material means I can get away with larger tippet and still get a good drift. Again, this is precisely BECAUSE visibility doesn't matter. The same factor applies to nymphing, although there, abrasion resistance comes into play. And typically is counter to the suppleness factor, i.e. supple materials have worse abrasion resistance. So you have that trade-off with nymphs... But visibility still is NOT part of the equation.

 

[pcray1231]

Ok, so I did it. Bought my 2nd pair of MJ's.

The first pair were the Twin Falls, in the HT. The lenses are "MauiPure", which is their term for an advanced Trivex like plastic. That pair is VERY comfortable, good in low light, and probably my favorite all around glasses. So light you don't know they're on. But the polarization, while very good compared to mid-tier brands, was a step below my costa's. The reason is a touch of birefringence (which is common in any plastic, including Costa and Smith and others).

The costa's are fathoms with 580 glass green mirror and superb polarization, but they are a little dark for my tastes. Great for coastal areas I'm sure but dark for 90% of my forested PA trout excursions. And Costa doesn't have anything really between about 12% VLT and their plastic "sunrise" lens at 30%. And since I have a dark and a light pair, I wanted a "medium" pair, and I wanted them to be glass.

The new pair are MJ "Peahi" model. Glass, with their bronze lens. An old MJ site showed them at 16% VLT, but they took that down and now don't post VLT unfortunately. Still, they fit the bill.

And holy moly. I mean, wow. And this from a guy with plenty of high end shades, including some from the same brand. The polarization tested out just slightly superior to the costa's. Like the costa's, there's no birefringence (that's because both are glass), but the computer screen test proves they block out a slightly wider range of angles. Haven't tested them on the water yet. To be clear, in terms of polarization, it's close, MJ wins but only by a nose.

But the part that blew me away is the clarity. Once you have them on, they almost don't seem tinted at all, the colors seem more saturated but still natural, and crazy sharp. The Costa's cast a STRONG amber/copper shade, but these do not. Tested side by side against the costa's, there's no comparison, distance vision seems sharper with the MJ's.

My one remaining fear is that once I start hiking around in them they'll fog up. This model fits tight to my face, not a lot of air flow. I can trade them in for 90 days, so I gotta test that out...

Having played with Smith, Costa, and MJ, my experience is this. Glass beats any plastic. Always. Regardless of brand. Not only is it sharper, but for a fisherman, birefringence harms polarization, and glass lacks it. I would assume this holds for Ray Ban and others that make glass an option as well. But if you are comparing equivalent materials, all 3 have excellent polarization but MJ is clearer and sharper.

 

[pcray1231]

Fun pic with 2nd pair of MJ's during the jam. That's dirt/sweat on the lens near the nose piece. When the glasses aren't on your face it adds something for light from behind to reflect on, defeating the anti-reflective coating. Oh well, doing this with an old point and shoot ain't easy anyway. It ain't a terrible pic.

Penns Creek. That's Murph. Yes, in the water, those are rocks.

 

[djs12354]

pcray1231 wrote:
Oakleys are straight polycarbonate. They say it's not and call it "plutonite", but it's straight polycarbonate.

Pat

I worke for the company tha molded Oaklry's lens blanks. As you said, straight up polycarbonate, with a hard coating applied for scratch esistance.

Always amused me to know what the lens soldfor versus the cost of an Oakley product.

 

[pcray1231]

They are pretty good for polycarbonate. It has its place. You said you "molded" them. Well, cheap gas station polycarbonate is stamped, so... Injection molded already gets you to $60 or $70 min, and takes the optics of polycarbonate about as far as it can go. The rest is polarization, coatings, frames, design.

Polycarbonates big advantage is impact resistance. For a child, skateboarder, ballplayer, or soldier, superior impact resistance is important.

But you give up some optics to get it. And for a fisherman, I don't recommend. Which is why they've never delved deeply into polarization. They have polarized versions but it's not the norm, and when they do it's rather low end polarization.

To be fair, virtually all brands do make straight polycarbonate lens options. Oakleys rank high in optics among that class (not in polarization but in other measures). But those other brands offer other materials as well, with better optics, that polycarbonate just can't touch no matter how you do it. Oakley does not offer other materials. Though they will happily show you some marketing with their optics compared to polycarbonate versions of other brands, and they fair decently well. Then they'll show you impact resistance compared to glass from other brands, where they are light years ahead. They aren't faked tests. Just carefully selected competition. A Costa, Smith, Ray Ban, Kaenon, or MJ in glass or Trivex will blow them out of the water in the optics department. In impact resistance, polycarbonate offerings from those same companies would show a wash, which isn't great for marketing either.

I won't rag on Oakley too much, they just were designed with a different target audience in mind, and then proceed with some selective marketing.

 

[ryansheehan]

I'm a MJ guy, I have quite a few pairs, I recently received a pair of Spartans reef redfish with the bronze lenses. They are the first glass pair I have had and I love them for fishing. Definitely not my everyday sunglasses because they are heavier than my other pairs, but its well worth it on the river.

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, the above pic is MJ Peahi in bronze. Similar to Spartan Reefs. Just a taller lens and made for wider noggins. Weight doesn't seem to bother me in everyday use

Glass is superior in optics. It's very noticeable for me. MJ is among the, if not the, best. But costa 580g and Smith Techlite are right there with them, perhaps Ray Ban as well. In any of those companies glass beats Trivex clones. Trivex beats polycarbonate.

I don't believe costa makes a polycarbonate. Their plastic version is all Trivex like materials. Cr38 maybe. Kaenon and some others play exclusively in the Trivex arena, and do it well. Smith's chromapop is also a Trivex like stuff. As is MJ's "Mauipure" and "evolution", the latter being a high index version for prescription.

MJ and Smith also offer straight polycarbonate. They are not among the best in polycarbonate. Polycarbonate exclusive companies, like Oakley, Suncloud, etc. have em beat.

 

[Beefheart]

It's been an education reading through this thread. I won't be able to spend $200+ on new shades right now, but I'll refer back to this when I can. Sounds worth the money.

Until then, any opinions on the Native Wazee? That's what I have now with polarized brown lenses. I'm thinking it might make sense to get another set of lenses for different light conditions. Lens kits range from $30-60, so not too pricey. Would a grey or the silver reflex lens be a good compliment to the brown? Brown for lower light and grey/silver for brighter? Or would you just wait and get higher quality glasses. I've never tried a more expensive pair on the water, so I don't have any idea what I might be missing.

Here's the site I'm looking at: https://nativeyewear.com/shop/parts-accessories/wazee/wazee-pol-gray-lens-kit

 

[pcray1231]

Native and costa are the same company. They will have among the best polarization the lens material is capable of. When I said Costa only had Trivex and glass, no polycarbonate, well, they do have polycarbonate, they just market it under the Native Eyewear brand. But it is polycarbonate. So it's comparable to Oakley, Wileyx, Under Armour, as well as the polycarbonate line of bigger names as being high end polycarbonate.

Frankly, while I prefer Trivex to polycarbonate, if I already had Natives I wouldn't bother. If you upgrade, only makes sense if going to glass.

Careful on the colors. Costa/Natives Brown is pretty dark. Their gray is really dark. Copper is their lighter Brown color and is still

 

[Beefheart]

I have the brown lens because the frames I got are "Maple Tort" which seem to all come with brown lenses. The copper lenses are only $40. I think I'll go for that.

Thanks for all the info and explanation. I'll feel pretty good with what I've got for now. I am definitely going to keep my eyes out for someone who will let me take a look through their high quality glass lenses just to see the difference.