I am nearsighted enough to require prescription lenses to drive. I have never and would never want to wear glasses when looking through binoculars (or my cameras). It not only puts more glare prone glass in the optical path, but it also makes it more difficult to stabilize the eyecup against your face. It has also led to the ever increasing and I think excessive eye relief of most modern binoculars (I just sold my Nikon SE's for exactly this reason). Yet I can see from various posts that there are many eyeglass wearers who wear their glasses when birding. I am hoping someone will explain why this is. I am also wondering, if the issue is that many binoculars will not allow infinity focus without glasses, would we not be better off trading some near focus for a little extra "beyond infinity focus". My Zeiss Classic 7x42's have a generous amount of "beyond infinity focus" so I know it is possible. Thank you in advance for your insight.
[QUOTE=angelo225544]Yet I can see from various posts that there are many eyeglass wearers who wear their glasses when birding. I am hoping someone will explain why this is. [/QUOTE]
Why they wear glasses when birding or just when using binoculars?! Answer to first is obvious - so they see birds rather than walking into trees :)
However, I guess the question meant when using binoculars - simple, it is a split second to get bins up to the eyes and be on a bird, why make it longer by going through hassle of removing glasses first?
I'm short sighted as well - I can see the bird wearing glasses and simply lift the binos staying fixed on the bird - dead easy to spot and very quick.
If I remove the glasses first my vision drops to around 4' and then you have to struggle to locate the bird through the binos. I dare say it's not so hard to do with a large bright bird stood in the open - but one sat in a bush or flying is more difficult.
Certainly it's more preferable not to have to wear the glasses but for me at least it's not as practical.
Same thing applies using the camera and the spotting scope.