Ray Ban authentic eyeglasses come in a variety of lens designs. You get the Digital Surface Technology from Ray Ban in different gradations for single vision lenses and progressive lenses. In this article, we will go into more detail about the differences between the lens designs and give recommendations on when to use which lens design from the Ray Ban Authentic portfolio.
First, let’s take a look at the single vision lens options. First of all, I will list the features of the glasses in a table and then you will get an explanation of which lens makes sense when.
Ray Ban Authentic Single Vision Lenses
| RAY-BAN® BASE | RAY-BAN® TUNED | RAY-BAN® EQUALIZED | RAY-BAN® AMPLIFIED |
| Spherical front curve lens | Aspherical front curve lens | Digital design on the backside surface of the lens | Digital design on the backside surface of the lens |
| Lens design is optimized for the frame | Lens design is optimized for the frame | ||
| Balanced design for each wearer in every frame | |||
| Bigger clear field of view | |||
| Available with individual parameters |
Ray Ban Base
The cheapest Ray Ban lenses are called Ray Ban Base. This type of lenses has the good old spherical lens design. This lens design is quite sufficient for eyeglass values up to +2 and -4 diopters. You will get just as sharp vision at low values as you would with Ray Ban’s more expensive lens options.
The reason for this is that differences in the calculations at lower eyeglass values still make little difference. Those lenses come only with the standard lens material with the index 1.5 which makes them thicker as soon as you need higher prescriptions.
Ray Ban Tuned
Ray Ban tuned are aspherical lenses. This lens design is typically a bit less curved, thinner and lighter compared to the spherical Base model. Hyperope people with plus lenses that make the eyes slightly bigger have a bigger effect buying aspherical lenses.
That means the clear field of view will be bigger. This is achieved with a change of the curvature of the lens. The lens gets a little flatter in the periphery compared to the center of the lens. The optimization in (change of curvature) is the same everywhere in the lens.
When you have a prescription of more than plus 3 diopters you will notice your vision turns a little blurry as soon as you look through the lenses in a steeper angle. In case the astigmatism is lower you will not see a difference in regards to the clear field of view of the Tuned level compared to the equalized level which is described next.
Ray Ban Equalized
Ray Ban Equalized tier is based on an atoric lens design. This lens design is definetly more sophisticated and it could make the field of view bigger for people with an astigmatism higher than 1.5 diopers. In addition to the atoric back surface of the lens parameters of the frame are factored in to produce an optimized visual experience.
Blurry fields of view get minimized compared to the lens desgings described earlier. However what does not get factored in are parameters of how far the lenses are positioned in front of the eyes and in what angle you are looking through. This is only factored in with the next lens design.
Ray Ban Amplified
Ray Ban amplified authentic lenses stand for high end lens technology. This means the prescreption gets fine tuned for the exact position the lens sits in front of your eyes. As the tilt of the lens changes a bit the optimal prescription also changes. The optician measures those individuela parameters and sends them to the Ray Ban lab.
They will then factor in the data and optimize your lenses to the highest level. This means bigger clear fields of view, better contrasts, less blur in the periphery and even slightly thinner lenses come with the amplified level. Especially when your needed lens power is higher then four diopters it is worthwhile choosing the better lenses.
In addition with the lens design you can choose between two different antireflective coatings and a blue light blocker. If you want to know if you really need blue light blockers I have an article here for you. The optional blue light filter come built into the material or the coating.
All authentic Ray Ban coatings have the following attributes:
- 1. UV PROTECTION
- 2. FRONT SURFACE GLARE REDUCTION
- 3. BACK SURFACE GLARE REDUCTION
- 4. HYDROPHOBIC
- 5. OIL-REPELLENT
- 6. ANTISTATIC
Ray Ban Authentic Progressive Lenses
Progressive lenses are also part of the Ray Ban Authetic portfolio. Here there are also four different lens designs. Especially with progressive lenses higher end options result in bigger fields of view. Let us dive deeper in what the lenses actually offer.
| RAY-BAN® BASE | RAY-BAN® TUNED | RAY-BAN® EQUALIZED | RAY-BAN® AMPLIFIED |
| Digital Design on the backside of the progressive lens | Digital Design on the backside of the progressive lens | Digital design on the backside surface of the progressive lens | Digital design on the backside surface of the progressive lens |
| Variable progressive corridor | Lens design is optimized for the frame | Lens design is optimized for the frame | |
| Dynamic positioning of the reading zones depending on lens power | Dynamic positioning of the reading zones depending on lens power | ||
| less blur and bigger intermediate zone | less blur and bigger intermediate zone | ||
| Available with individual parameters |
To really grasp the concept about cheaper and high end progressive lenses I recommend this article here. But I will do my best to summarize the topic and apply it to the progressive lenses of Ray Ban.
Ray Ban Base
The progressive lenses in the base tier have the progressive corridor grind on the back surface. this design makes your fielld of view slightly bigger compared to old progressive lens designs that had the progressive corridor on the front surface.
Other than that there is no option to optimize the lenses. This means every other setting is already chosen. For example the length of the progressive corridor is set to 17mm. This corridor is the distance between the spots you look through the lenses straight forward into the distance to the point where you have maximum reading support.
When you are used to a longer or shorter progressive corridor in your daily progressive lenses this may take a little time getting used to the lenses. But in most cases 17mm is a good length for a progressive corridor. Except when anisometropia (two different lens powers are needed for your left an right eye) then a shorter corridor will probably work better.
This progressive lens from Ray Ban will work when the ADD value is lower than 1.50D. because with a low ADD value is still quite big. This is usually the case when you are in your 40s. The problem is when you choose this lens design with a needed Add value of 2.25. Then the clear field of view will be a lot smaller. (If you want an estimate on how big it is I have an artcile here for you)
But the Base lens does not factor in how wide the distance is between both of your pupils. When it is wider or smaller you will be using other parts of the lenses while reading. Because the angle you look through the lenses changes when you look at somthing to read with a bigger or smaller pupillary distance.
Ray Ban Tuned
The Ray Ban Tuned progressive lens adds a variable corridor to the specs. This means the minimum fitting height of the progressive lens can be reduced to 14mm instead of 17mm in the base tier. With a shorter progressive corridor the blurry fields of view get more intense in the periphery. The longer the progressive corridor the less intense the blurry fields of view become.
Ray Ban Equalized
With the equalized tier you get everything the Tuned lens design can do but on top you get an optimization for the blurry fields of view. This means depending on the shape of the chosen Ray Ban frame the blurry fields of view gets pushed to the periphery as good as it gets.
This is also true for the positioning of the reading area in front of your eyes while you read. With the equalized progressive lens tier from Ray Ban the reading area is positioned in realtion to lens your lens power and the frame. The results are bigger clear fields of view and less need to move your head while reading. In addition less people recognize swaying effects in the periphery of the lenses.
For most wearers of progressive lenses the experience when it comes to the size of the field of view is not very satisfying. Even with high end progressive lenses from other manufacturers. Here is a comparison of high end progressive lenses with a clear field of view most can experience as soon as they turn 50. This tier at least is also what I would recommend most people.
Both of the already cheaper tiers do not have the individual positioning of the reading areas which can make or break the experience with progressive lenses. When the ADD valeue is higher than 1.50 Diopters the clear field of view in the reading area gets very small. This is why better postioning of this small area plays such a crucial role.
The minimum fitting height for this progressive lens is 10mm. This means it is also suitable for extremly small glasses and sunglasses.
Speaking of the perfect postioning. If you want it all and even want to take it a step further and buy the lens with the widest field of view form Ray Ban the amplified authentic Ray Ban progressive lenses are your thing.
Ray Ban Amplified
The Ray Ban Amplified progressive lenses is the best what Ray Ban has to offer when it comes to prescription lenses. On top of the features of the equalized progressive lens the amplified lens design factors more as worn parameters in. Those are distance and angles that are measured when the glasses sit in the face of the wearer.
Some glasses have a steeper tilt to it. Others are moder curved. All those small changes also influence the optimal prescription and the postion of the reading zone. With the information of the mentioned parameters the lab from Ray Ban knows exactly how to optimize the lenses to the max. The result could be bigger fields of view and less blur compared to the equalized option.
The minimum fitting height of the authentic Ray Ban Amplified progressive lenses is 14mm.
All of the mentioned authentic prescription lenses are made out of plastic.
Available Lens Materials of Authentic Ray Ban Rx Lenses
There are different materials available. The lowest tier of clear single vision lenses is just available in the basic 1.5 index which is the standard lens material and leads to thicker lenses as the lens power needs to be higher than 3 Diopters. Incomparison the tuned single vision tier is available in the thinner materials 1.59 and 1.67. the other two tiers are available in the index 1.5, 1.59, 1.67 and 1.74.
Progressive lenses are available in all the mentioned materials no matter the chosen qualtiy of the lenses. This is true for clear lenses. When it comes to tinted lenses the materials are limited to the index 1.59 and 1.67 with single vision and progressive lenses.
This became a somehow lengthy article about the authentic prescription lenses of Ray Bans. I hope the information in this article was helpful to you. I wish you a great day.