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At Eyecatchers, we use our expertise to recommend the right lenses for your prescription, your lifestyle and your selected frames.

Function rules over fashion. It’s no use having a really cool looking pair of specs which you can’t wear.

Being independent we are able to offer lenses from all reputable laboratories worldwide ensuring that the perfect lenses are selected first time.

We use high quality lenses produced in Single Vision, Bifocal, Progressive and occupational/School designs. These lenses are available in a range of materials from standard index plastic to a high index plastic, which provides a thinner stronger lens, achieving clearer optical clarity.

Our lenses are selected from leading Lens manufacturers such as

A Smooth Transition to Natural Vision

If you are over 40 and having difficulty with your vision, chances are you are experiencing presbyopia, the common gradual loss of near vision. But there is good news: you have more choices today than ever before. You don’t have to carry a separate pair of glasses for reading or wear lined bifocal lenses like your parents did.

Progressive lenses offer a smooth transition from distance vision through intermediate vision to near vision, and they supply all the in-between corrections as well. This means that instead of having just two different viewing zones (near and distant), like with bifocals, progressive lenses have progressive powers of correction (from bottom to top), easing eye strain and providing the most natural vision correction.

The worlds very first progressive lens, invented in 1959, was a Varilux lens.And since that time, Essilor has continued to innovate and set new standards of performance in vision care for presbyopic patients. Varilux lenses continue to be the #1 prescribed progressive lens by eyecare professionals around the world.

When light enters the eye, the first thing it encounters is the cornea, a clear film of five layers of tissue. Transparency is the most crucial quality of the cornea, and so it has no blood vessels—all of the necessary nutrients are diffused through fluids on either the inside or the outside of the cornea and through a transparent protective cover called the conjunctiva. The cornea’s two main functions are to protect the eye from toxins and particles that could damage the eye and to act as the primary window for light entering the eye, reflecting and focusing the light onto the lens, light’s next stop in its journey.

Between the cornea and the lens, however, it is important to mention the iris and the pupil. The iris is the colored part of the eye, and the pupil is actually just a small hole in the iris, even though it appears to be black. Light reflected from the cornea passes through the pupil and onto the lens, and the iris controls just how much of that light is allowed through. In bright areas the pupil does not need to be very large for clear vision, while in darkness the pupil will dilate (become larger) to optimize the amount of light that can get back to the lens and the retina. To see this happening in real time, just spend a few minutes outside on a sunny day and then walk inside and look in a mirror. A few seconds after coming inside your pupil will be small, but given some time to assimilate it will adjust to the darker room and expand.

The light that passes through the pupil is reflected onto the lens next. Much like a camera lens, both the cornea and the lens have the job of correctly focusing the light so that the image projected onto the retina is as clear as possible. The lens is transparent and fibrous and controlled by tiny muscles that flatten or accommodate it depending on whether or not the eye is focusing on something that is far or near. The change in the shape of the lens also affects the size of the pupil, which gets larger when the lens is flat and focusing on something far away and gets smaller when light is reflecting off an object that is close and the lens is more convex. The pupil therefore effectively has an infinite number of shapes, as it is affected by the amount of light entering the eye and the distance away from the object in focus.

Once the light has been processed by the lens it is then bent and reflected as an upside-down image onto a single point on the last of the ten layers of the retina. This, however, is not quite the end of the journey, because from that layer the image is then projected onto the ninth layer, the photoreceptor layer. This is the part of the retina that is able to interpret the image that up until now has just been passed through and processed by the other parts of the eye. There are two categories of photoreceptors, rods and cones, and it is they that compress the image into a message that is sent through the optic nerve to the brain, where finally the inverted image becomes the right-side-up one that you see.

The process of vision is very complex and requires that every participant function exactly as it was intended, because any alteration, however slight, can result in impaired vision. It is no wonder, therefore, that vision problems are so common and so varied, or that there are people who spend their careers devoted to solving them!

Ref: http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/eyephotos/index-grphc.html

Computer Vision

When one needs to use a computer the demands on the eye change, the monitor usually falls into the intermediate zone of vision which is ordinarily not used much. Computer glasses can help improve comfort levels while using a computer by correcting blurred vision, and relieving symptoms caused by struggling to focus, such as eyestrain and burning. The lens of choice to correct computer induced problems is usually a no-line multifocal which allows correction for near, intermediate and in some cases distance vision.

An anti-reflection coating on the lenses will also help eliminate glare and reflections from bright office lighting.

Sports Vision

Eye wear for sports can take many forms.

Protection: Polycarbonate is an impact-resistant material which works well in protecting the eyes from fast moving objects, it also has inbuilt UV protection. Frame material choice is also important to again allow for maximum impact protection.

Enhancement: some tinted lenses will enhance particular colours. Yellow enhancement is particularly desirable in tennis where balls are usually yellow, golfers may want to distinguish between various green colours on the course, and shooters may also benefit by highlighting a particular colour. Amber or rose lenses will enhance the soft greys on a ski slope thus making it easier to see bumps and ridges in the snow.

Dry eyes may be a problem with cold weather sports, making contact lens wear a problem, but in many other sports these would be the correction of choice as they allow maximum peripheral vision, and in most cases, are hard to dislodge from the eyes.

Contact lenses have been around for more than 50 years, technology has dramatically improved in that time, particularly in the last 5 years, and we are able to offer almost everybody the comfort and convenience of contact lens wear.

Contact lenses are medical devices which have to be properly fitted and checked by your eye care practitioner. After your eyes have been checked for suitability, your contact lens prescription will be determined, then the best contact lens option for you will be discussed. The type of lens and replacement schedule will direct you towards the best lens for you.

Disposable Contact Lenses 

Disposable lenses are now the most common type of lens, favoured because of their health and convenience benefits. Disposable lenses are also known as frequent replacement lenses, they can be prescribed for either daily or extended wear. How often they are replaced varies from person to person and depends on the type of lens, how often they are worn, and how your eyes behave whilst wearing contact lenses.

Daily Disposables

Also known as one-days, fresh new lenses every day, each night the contact lenses are thrown out and a new pair is worn the next day. This allows for the convenience of occasional wear and avoids the hassle of cleaning and storing contact lenses. For people who have problems with protein and deposit build ups, and for people with allergies this lens may be a solution.

Monthly Disposables

These contact lenses are an excellent choice for the frequent lens wearer, they are cost effective, convenient, and the many designs available, allow for more complex prescriptions and astigmatism to be corrected. They are replaced frequently enough to prevent the discomfort of deposit build up and therefore help the eyes maintain clear vision and optimum health.

Continuous Wear

These are contact lenses, which have been designed to safely allow the continuous wear of contact lenses for 24 hours a day, for up to 30 days, even while you sleep. These lenses allow more oxygen to reach the eye than a standard lens, this allows the eye to remain healthy and comfortable whilst wearing the lenses. Continuous wear lenses are ideal for busy lifestyles, and for people who want to see clearly at any time of the day or night, without the hassle of removing and cleaning lenses. These lenses also allow flexible wear, the lenses are worn as a daily lens and allow occasional night wear, good for taking a nap or a weekend trip away. Overnight lens wear has more health risks compared to removal at night and therefore a stricter aftercare regimen is essential.

BIFOCAL LENSES

These lenses have been designed to give good vision for people with presbyopia as they offer the convenience of distant and reading vision in the one lens, eliminating the need for separate reading glasses. These lenses are available as soft, rigid or disposable frequent replacement lenses. When this type of lens is not the answer, due to adaptation problems, another solution may be monovision, this is where one eye is corrected for distance and the other for near. As this process is very subjective, and the answer varies from person to person, we offer free-trial programmes to find the solution for you. These lenses are available as a disposable or conventional lens.

TORIC LENSES

These are special lenses designed for eyes needing a correction for astigmatism. Astigmatism is usually caused when the front surface of the eye is not perfectly round. A specially designed toric contact lens can be prescribed to correct this problem and allow good vision. Toric lenses have 2 powers in them and a mechanism to keep the lens stable on the eye. This lens takes more time and expertise to fit. These lenses are available as a disposable, rigid or conventional lens, the best option varies depending on the amount of astigmatism present in the eye.

COLOURED LENSES

Coloured lenses can be used to completely change or just enhance your eyes’s natural colour. They are available in lots of colours and can even be worn by those who have perfect vision, a prescription is still required as a coloured contact lens is still a medical devise. These are available as conventional and disposable lenses.

GAS PERMEABLE LENSES

While soft contact lenses are the most common, another type is available called gas permeable. These lenses are made of a rigid oxygen permeable material, they can provide better vision, durability and deposit resistance than soft contact lenses. They can be easier to clean, and since they are long-lasting, they can be less expensive in the long term than soft lenses. Not everyone can wear these lenses, as to achieve maximum comfort with them, they have to be worn every day, and  they require more time to get used to before they are comfortable. But they can be the answer for people who don’t achieve acceptable vision with soft lenses.