I know teal is a popular tint for tennis, but what about for clay courts? Would violet or rose be better? Thanks!
I know teal is a popular tint for tennis, but what about for clay courts? Would violet or rose be better? Thanks!
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
I wear my BluBlocker lenses in amber color more and more and I find that the depth perception and superb contrast ability make them the most interesting sunglasses that also absorb all the UV the sun can throw at you.
No Ar coating needed, no mirrors needed, just a simple tint of blublocker and another tint for the visible color of the lens. I tinted them for about 4 minutes in the microwave and that was it. Inexpensive and fast to do.
With clay courts being a little grayish here in the states, wouldn't a "cooler" shade work better than amber to mute the court more and make the ball and lines pop? Or is my thinking off here?
P.S. Thanks Chris, I figured you'd be the first to chime in!
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
If the court is West of the Great Divide we prefer Tahitian Sunset. East of the Great Divide the choice is Sahara Wind. Cripes, I thought everyone knew this.
Of course! Please forgive me for failing!
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
From my understanding if you want to retain a more natural color balance go with either grey, blue or purple. If you're looking for enhanced depth perception yellow is best followed by red but both will affect how you perceive other colors. Brown would be a middle of the road between color balance/depth perception.
I have attached an example of a clay court image is creative commons commercial use. The easiest and best patient demonstration is to open the image up in a image editor and invert the colors. The clay court as you can see in the inverted image is a blueish hue, this is the complementary color and using color theory will block out the clay court while giving the white lines a bit of a pop and the yellow ball should stand out against this backdrop. In essence you are filtering the clay courts hue out so that the information received is primarily the ball and lines, this should allow for better focus of the limited visual information available.
Blue blockers are a poor choice for clay court tennis as the court is the same color of the lenses allowing all the light from the court to pass through in effect changing the other colors such as the ball and lines. It will help to reduce the blue in the sky though since it is an opposite color of the the sky which is blue, hence blue blocker.
Superb explanation Harry.
However I have not played tennis in a long time. However I walk my black lab every morning around ten tennis courts located across from my house in the local park, The courts are being groomed every morning are made with a uniform grey fine gravel.
Don't tell me that these courts are no good and or not the right color as the queen was watching some games here a few years ago.
So my BluBlocker comment still seems to be valid.
Last edited by Chris Ryser; 07-24-2014 at 03:28 AM.
Its an issue because although blue would neutralize the court color, it would also lower depth perception noticeably. Since the light from the sky and not glare from the court is the primary issue, I would favor a polarized A in brown, tinted with yellow, and then add a green gradient over the top. Just for fun. Because I am crazy that way.
Attachment 11209
Somewhere in my collection, is a pair of Arthur Ashe tennis glasses. They came with yellow lenses. I can't remember who made them.
So, Harry, are you saying a teal blue would be best? And Chris, you're saying an Amber? And sharpstick777, you're saying a little of both??? Thanks y'all!
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
This is confusing, but I think we can dope our way through it.
In theory, I'd think we'd want to enhance the contrast of the ball, because that's what we're looking at.
Let's assume the ball is that optic neon color (like 565 nm or whatever it is). You'd want a lens that would pass that wavelength.
Then you'd want to block the background, which in tennis would be what? The court, I guess. Probably not the sky, if it's in a stadium, but who knows what your average tennis court has at "eye level"? Probably some green cover over a chain-link fence.
If the background is already dark, like dark green over chain-link, then you'd not have to worry. But if it's bright, like sun reflecting off clay, which is kinda orangey-browney, then maybe you'd better block the clay. It's, what, 650-750 (red).
So you want to pass the middle of the spectrum and block the red end. I think that says "blue".
But I think this is entirely dependent on the court environment. I think what's at eye level is probably more important than the court.
Yellow just doesn't make sense to me. After playing around with a color simulator, seems like green mutes the court the best while still giving good contrast to the yellows and whites. Comments?
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
Agreed drk. And I apologize, I wrote my last post before yours showed up.
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
Bollė sorted all this out decades ago. A tealish green lens is what the tennis champs of the day asked for - and got.
Hey buddy, good to hear from ya! Yeah, I know Bolle sorta pioneered that teal lens, but I haven't been able to determine if it is strictly for hard court, or if it works well on clay also.
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
I'm guessing since Bolle are Frenchies, and the French Open is all clay, that they thought of that when inventing the teal.
If the Brits did it for Wimbledon, you'd probably have the converse...pass the middle of the spectrum and block the blue end, ergo, orangey (but I'd doubt you'd need that..it's already high contrast).
I think Finney should take the afternoon off and hit some balls and tell us what he finds.\
(A nice dark blue ball on the clay would help things.)
Hmmm good point about the French connection drk!
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
Personally I recommend the Maui HT lens for tennis.
Maui HT is very similar to the Drivewear lens my patient wears currently and is not fully satisfied with.
Bryan Finley, Florida Board Certified Licensed Dispensing Optician
On a bright sunny day the amber is going to block enough of the blue from the sky to give a comfortable view of any bright outdoor environment, but the ball being yellow and the court being a reddish clay is going to meld a bit with the color distortion. The RGB values of colors so closely mimic our color receptors that tools like Photoshop and other graphics programs can be used fairly confidently to see the effects of filters. If you can shut down the stimulus to the red receptors while allowing the greens to pass through fairly unobstructed the red clay will show as almost black and the ball will seem to glow against this background. Much of tennis is gazing at low to the net high speed shots so that clay is going to be the key color to target. Now if your opponent is serving lobs over the net, you may be at a disadvantage because that bluish lens is going to amplify the sky. As a compromise you could dye the blue with a grey to evenly neutralize the sky in those cases.
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Blue Blocked
Green Blocked
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Yellow reduces Short Wave blue because its at the opposite of the spectrum. Shortwave Blue does not refract through the visual system the same as other colors so it lands on the retina incorrectly and out of focus. The end result is enormous loss of clarity, and depth perception known as flat light.
It doesn't matter what color the ball is, or the court is, reducing short-wave blue will enhance detail and depth perception. Yellow, Orange and Red and to a lesser degree, brown, all have the effect of reducing short-wave blue through a lens.
Skiiers know how important this is.
Unless the player/court officials have made a conscious choice to use balls with a different color than standard optical yellow against the various clays that are used today, there is a problem. As the color of the court approaches that of the ball, there is no real means to effectively separate them as well as you can against a hard court. With that said, I would try to determine the color of ball used, and focus your efforts there. The definition of the court doesn't seem as critical as the fast moving ball to my mind. But then, I don't play the game...
Bollé's optical yellow ball focused lens would still seem to be the logical place to start at least?
Arthur Ashe sunglasses were made by American Optical (AO). They retailed for $35 in an age (1974) when a Ray Ban Aviator was $17!
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