points by frosted-flakes 7 years ago

Chromatic aberration drives me nuts, especially when driving at night or using a computer. LED headlights are particularly irritating; if I don't look through the centre of the lenses, the way they separate into distinct blue and white lights creates a visually chaotic scene.

The last time I got new glasses (from Costco), I specifically requested lenses that would minimise chromatic aberration. But they didn't have anything better than the high index lenses I already had. I have very bad eyes (rx of -8.25 and -8.00), which makes my lenses quite thick.

Are there other lens materials that do a better job of minimising chromatic aberration? I've tried researching this, but wasn't able to find anything.

mindslight 7 years ago

The measure you're looking for is the Abbe number. Many opticians won't know what you're talking about, but if you push and/or research materials yourself this number is readily available. I remember comparing materials with (IoR-1)/Abbe as my "badness" score, but don't cite me on that.

A while ago I surveyed the materials that were available. The usual 1.6 proprietary materials (Sola/Hoya/Shamir/Signet) have Abbe of 42. The 1.67's are 31 or 32. I did see a reference to a single Zeiss material with an IoR of 1.67 and Abbe of 42, which you would be interested in. I'm sure it's going to be expensive though.

theandrewbailey 7 years ago

I know exactly what you're talking about. The Microsoft logo drives me nuts, in that I know the colored squares are equally separated from each other, but I don't see them that way. They actually move towards and away from each other as they move around my field of view.

  • frosted-flakes 7 years ago

    Yeah, this effect really screws with my head sometimes. Sitting at a traffic signal and seeing the coloured light floating off to side is a bit weird too.