Blog

Buyer’s Blog: To See or…?

I had the great fortune to see Verdi’s great masterpiece “Don Carlos” at Houston Grand Opera last night.  I don’t know that I have ever seen a better piece of theatre in my life! (That’s saying a lot.  I have a graduate degree in theatre, so I’ve seen many great shows).  But this is not an opera review.My opera seats aren’t expensive—they’re in the balcony, high above the action, about 40 yards away.  As I was watching the action on stage, I realized how well my digitally surfaced lenses allow me to SEE.  Now, I don’t have much of a distance correction—less than 1.00 diopter total power.  This is the type of prescription that may make a doctor say “You have a slight prescription, but you don’t really need glasses.”  Technically my vision is “20/20”.  That means that I can read all of the letters on that line, albeit with difficulty.  With my correction, I can see all of the 20/15 line!As an experiment, I tried watching for a while without my glasses.  Although I have “20/20” vision, I completely lost the ability to discern facial expressions.  Details in costumes and set pieces became fuzzy.  The projected super-titles definitely became more difficult to read.  When I replaced my glasses I realized how important they were to my overall enjoyment of the show.  It was honestly like the difference between an old analog tube TV and a modern high-definition flat screen.This led me to wonder how many people invest hundreds, or thousands, of dollars on technology—tablets with retina displays, large-screen HDTVs, hundreds of dollars a month in high-definition programming—only to lose that resolution because they have been told that they “don’t really need glasses”.  As eye care providers, we should really be encouraging our patients to see as well as they can.  As consumers, we should be demanding the best vision possible.  All of the money spent on electronics (or tickets for concerts, plays, and yes, operas) is wasted if you can’t see them clearly.  What is a few hundred dollars for top-quality lenses compared to the cost of our video equipment, especially if those lenses are what allow us to have a truly “high-definition” experience?Today’s digitally surfaced lenses allow us, the eye care provider, to make your prescription as accurately as possible—to within 1/100th of a diopter!  Stop in to Eye Elegance and let us show you what you’re missing.  And if you get the chance, see “Don Carlos” at HGO.  It truly puts the “Grand” in “Grand Opera”!