Outdoor & Indoor EnChroma ® Lenses – review

You may remember Michael from our earlier blog about his experience trying the EnChroma® glasses and seeing colour for the first time. 3 months in and he’s written us this update on wearing the outdoor and indoor EnChroma® lenses

---

I am Michael, a third-year film production student, and I have moderate protanomaly. This means that I see too much green in everything and not enough red. This affects almost all the colours in the spectrum and, in fact, allows me to see far less colours than normal colour vision. In February of this year, Eyes on St Albans became the first store to sell EnChroma ® colour corrective lenses in the UK, and I became the first person to try them on!

Outdoor EnChroma® lenses

I have had the outdoor lenses for three months, and I still love wearing them on a sunny day. My favourite thing to see are red cars in the daylight, it is stunning and still takes my breath away. However, even on more gloomy days they work wonders. I imagine it is much like having normal colour vision, in fact. When the sun hits a red car it glows, but when it is in the shade you can still see the colour but it isn’t as bright. Due to my condition, I had never really experienced such drastic changes. I initially wanted this type of lens because the colours are so strong and vibrant. I found the distinction between colours became easier and easier the longer I wore them, as well as the colour detailing in everything becoming more beautiful. These lenses are certainly for people who like to travel, people who make the most of summers’ days.

Indoor Enchroma® lenses

The indoor lenses are a different beast entirely. Almost the polar opposite to the outdoor lenses, as you might expect, these glasses are incredible at normalising artificial light and screens. Where you cannot wear the outdoor lenses because of the tint, the indoor lenses will allow it. On first testing them, you may compare these lenses to the outdoor ones in the exact same setting. But they are specifically designed to work in opposing scenarios. Indoor lenses are best for looking at your smartphone, using a laptop, going to the cinema, or just being inside. I love watching films and, finally, watching them with the correct colours that the filmmakers intended me to see. Before, when I tried watching films with the outdoor lenses, the tint would be too strong and I would be straining my eyes. But now I can watch films as  though I’m not even wearing glasses, which is perfect.

In summation, I would urge any colourblind people to get themselves a pair of these glasses. Having both outdoor and indoor lenses, for me, means that I can have, close to, normal colour vision almost all the time. I would not be able to part with either of them now that I have them. They have allowed me to see beautiful colours that I could not have ever been able to see in my life. I can now communicate about colours easier with normal colour vision and describe my colour blindness in much more detail. On my course, Film and Digital Production, I can now partake in colour grading and colour correction with more accuracy, when I would never have been able to before. I sincerely cannot recommend these glasses enough: life changing!

---

If you’d like to try EnChroma ® for yourself, you can take the test on the EYES on ST ALBANS App (just search EYES on ST ALBANS in your app store) or contact us to make an appointment