Optivisor question / opinion

Like shoes, try them on and see which you like best. I have a pair that clip-on to my glasses which work well. Otherwise I also have a magnification lamp (good quality on not a cheap one) or I use those reading glasses that you find on the rack at the drug store (1.5 power). It depends on what I am working on as to which I use. The lamp works best for carving or working PE and protects you from flying objects. The other two work better for painting and assembly. None of them will do you much good if you do not have adequate enough light. The more light the more effective the lenses work. Case in point a good rifle scope for hunting at dawn or dust needs a large forward lens to gather light as well as magnify. This helps you see smaller darker objects in low light levels. I tried a visor type hood, feels like a base ball cap with a lead visor to me. Check out their website.

My aboslutely favorite is DA-7. But some of my friends think that it makes you get to close to the object you're working on. I also have one with less magnification and also the DA-10 (strongest). The stronges one is a bit much even to me.

I'll say that buy one and if the standard lenses which come with it are bit too weak, buy the stronger lenses. I woud recommend DA-7, DA-5 and DA-4. You might like the DA-5 the best. All of this also depends on the type of work you do. If you are into larger scales, you don't need much magnification. If you superdetail N (like me) or Z scale model trains, you need stronger magnification.

Peteski

I'm 46 and up until a few years ago, the only time I used magnification was when doing extremely small detail work. Now however, age has finally caught up with my eyes and I need magnifiers to read (unless I want to hold the reading material four feet away...).

I've tried several fixes, and have the following comments:

1. Reading glasses. Work great for reading (duh) but don't have the magnification power for detail work.

1. OptiVisor. I have a #3 diopter (1-3/4 power) visor, and while I like this magnification (doesn't kill depth of field while still bringing things in close enough), I'm not a big fan of wearing the thing - feels too restrictive to me. As others have said, you should try several different magnification settings to see which one you like best. Don't assume you need a powerful magnifier: not only will this tire your eyes more quickly, the depth of field (the range from your eyes at which the object being viewed remains in focus) gets very small very fast.

2. Luxo Magnifier lamp. This is an arm-mounted circular 22W fluorescent lamp with a 3-diopter lens in the middle. The actual one I have is very old (still has a "UNION MADE" sticker on it) and is of all-metal construction, but it closely matches the current "KFM" series of lamps from Luxo. More expensive than a visor, but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (they also sell more economical models, but I don't have any experience with these). You can position the arm where you want it, then move it in and out of your work area very quickly/easily. And when you don't need it, you can swing the lamp completely out of the way. Check eBay.

yeah, I have one of those swing arm magnifiers too. just push it away when done. always felt weird to me at least wearing those goggle things. got mine shoved in a drawer somewhere.

Craig

FWIW, I just went to Sam's Club and bought a 4 pk of their 2.5 diopter reading glasses. They work great for me.

Reading glasses are the best. Optivisors magnify too much and you lose your depth of field. I have an optivisor kicking around somewhere; I never use it. Reminds me...I'll donate it to my club for a raffle/door prize.

--- Stephen

I wear an optivisor with my reading glasses. I sometimes have to drop the second set of lenses to do fine features on 1/35 figures.