What Is the Best Progressive Lens for Photographers?


Progressive lenses for photographers are seldom found in the portfolios of the various manufacturers. But there is one manufacturer of progressives who takes the demands of Photographers very seriously and developed a progressive lens, especially for photographers.

It is Leica who has a well-known reputation in the community when it comes to the cameras. But they also produce progressive lenses in France. The lens design we will be talking about is the Digivid Photo from Leica. After this article, you will know what distinguishes this progressive lens design from others.

Why the Digivid Photo Progressive Lens Is the Best for Photographers

The Digivid Photo has a few technological features to deliver give you a very smooth transition from far to near vision. But what distinguishes the Digivis Photo from other Freefrom progressive lenses in the first place is far means 6 meters (19 feet) in this case.

The prescription in the upper half of the lenses adds approximately a quarter of a diopter to the prescription. That is why you get an even crispier focus in the room.

Your optician could tweak the lens power again to let you focus on a bigger distance but this would change the purpose of this lens for you wearing this as a photographer.

But it is not made for driving and having a perfect vision in the far distance. It gives you more focus in a studio setting. With this lens, you get the room distance perfectly clear. If you are about to focus on something or to concentrate on little details in the room distance this lens makes it easy.

Besides the setting in the room distance, the next thing that is very important for you as a photographer when it comes to progressive lenses is the reading zone. The Digi Vid Photo lets you focus easily on your camera display. This progressive lens design is optimized for those two distances.

You can quickly look at the model or the object in the room and check your photo easily on your screen. In comparison to the emphasis on the room distance and the reading distance, the mid-distance or lap top distance is quite small in this lens.

If you compare this progressive lens design to its others the Digivid Photo is rather short. This means you do not need to look down as much to get the full reading support.

This totally influences the way you can hold your camera and see the display sharp. With a normal medium-sized progressive lens design you would have to hold the camera more down so you can see It clearly. And if you use a long progressive lens, this means you need to hold the camera more in the direction of your stomach to see the screen clearly.

In comparison with progressive lens design for photographers, you can hold your camera higher which enables you to switch your focus faster from your object to the screen and back.

What Lens Material to Choose for Your Digivid Photo

The Digivid Photo progressive lens is available in two different plastic materials. The materials are called after their index 1.5 or 1.6. They deliver slightly different characteristics in terms of durability and perception of colors.

When it comes to how you perceive colors by looking through your progressive lenses the 1.5 material will give you the purest results. When you compare dummy lenses in the optical store only very few people can tell the difference. But there is a difference between both materials. And if you are serious about colors you should at least look through both lens materials.

When the 1.5 gives you the purest experience of how you perceive colors it is also a little thicker compared to the 1.6 material. One drawback of this material is, the 1.5 material is not recommended for rimless frames or nylon frames. This of course limits the selection of frames a little bit.

In most cases, photographers choose the 1.5 material if they are serious about editing their pictures and optimizing them afterward. In such a case you could also use computer progressive lenses optimized for your editing in addition to your progressives. And when you are not sitting on your desktop you could switch back to the Digivid Photo.

Because when it comes to editing on a normal desktop PC this lens design will fall short in comparison to computer glasses. If you are editing for long hours an additional pair of glasses might be a good idea.

What to Expect From the Anti-Reflective Coating From Leica?

You can expect nothing but the highest performance when it comes to the coatings on the Digivid Photo. The exact name of the coating is Aquadura Vision Pro. And this coating in peculiar is one of my favorite ones I tested in the last years.

The reason is the great performance when it comes to less reflections and mirroring effects on the lens surface compared to other premium brands. It performs well in artificial light and in normal sunlight as well.

This coating has no special color. Most coatings out there have a minimal green or blue glare on them. This has a very minimal white one. The perception of colors is very good. In some cases with other coatings (this will not happen with this progressive lens for photographers) the coating changes the colors into a more warm tone.

You should be aware of this if you are serious about the photos and editing afterward. Because in some cases a blue filter is added depending on the coating you choose. If the blue light gets filtered out even if is very minimal you will end up with a light brown or yellow looking lens.

Service and Guarantees

One thing that can really break your experience with your new progressive lenses is a scratch on the perfect lenses you just bought. I mean let us face it everybody has scratches in their lenses. The question is not if it is going to happen but when.

And when it happens you can be sure the coating will not be the same because dirt accumulates easier then in the scratch and you will end up with a less durable lens surface.

But what if you would not have to deal with scratches? At least for one year, you get an anti-scratch guarantee in Leica’s product line up. Isn’t this awesome? Everybody has to deal with scratches and Leica just lowers the stress with this guarantee.

As far as the information I have this guarantees are only available if you registered your lenses online on Leica’s website.

But they do not stop here. If you you lose your glasses or they break Leica will produce a spare part and will hand it to you within 72 hours if you stay in Europe. In my humble you should have a spare pair of glasses with you anyways if you can not go without them. But having this kind of service is definitely nice.

The spare glasses would be single vision ones.

I hope this sums it all up about the best progressive lenses for photographers. Of course, this is a specialized product that is made for people dealing with switching the focus from far to near quite often. And if you do this all the time and want a pair of glasses dedicated for your shootings this is the lens design to go.

I wish you a great day.

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