Persimmon Lens Problem! Anyone Else Have This?

[oldscooliron]

I purchased the Oakley Radar Persimmons lens & had 3 lens sent to me all with the same problem. I see on coming car headlights in day with a pair of ghost headlights to the left & the right of the real headlights with this lens. It really messes with your eyes.

Street lights also have 5 lights in a circle around the real light.

In my kitchen I have a 5 bulb fixture & can see 3 bulbs a little down & to the right of the real fixture.

All lights are the color of the real lights but slightly darker.

Oakley sent me the H.I. Persimmon lens & I just tried it out today & this evening & I see the same thing only the ghost lights are lighter & blueish in color but they are there just not as noticeable.

The grey lens that came with my Radars does not have this at all!

Has anyone else had this problem?

I need a good lens for overcast days, evening driving, & outdoor shooting. Any suggestions? Oakley has recommended the G26 which is made for shooting but I'm concerned this lens might be to dark for evening driving.

 

[Rustpot]

G26 isn't a good lens for much other than clay shooting. It does a REALLY good job of picking out orange, but not so great at much else, and the purple color it has can mess with people's ability to discern colors.

If I stare at the LED bulbs with yellow or persimmon I do see multiple ghosted images of the bulbs. And now I'm seeing spots. But I went with a darker lens (+Red and Gold Iridium) and still saw what you're talking about, just to a lesser degree.

You'll need to find a lens with an AR coating on the inside of the lens to help reduce this as much as possible. Polarized lenses would be a good bet, but there aren't many in the bright range for use in night driving or low-light.

 

[Rustpot]

Read up on this, too.
http://windinmyface.com/gear-sunglasses-Oakley.html

 

[oldscooliron]

Rustpot thank you very much for replying! Sorry your seeing spots! That link was awesome & is exactly what I'm talking about! Do you see multiple ghosted images of headlights with the yellow lens?

 

[Rustpot]

Yellow isn't any different. But I don't really wear any glasses for night driving.

In the blog post or whatever it was I linked, I do feel I need to point out that the writer came to the conclusion that Oakley doesn't use top-quality optics. I think he's wrong. The answer to that lies in his earlier statement about his Revo pairs being glass lenses and have the potential to shatter. Oakley uses a polycarbonate, which has positives and negatives. Inherent UV protection from the full UV spectrum (and by "full" I mean the area regarded as "harmful"), shatter resistant, light weight. Negatives being what you're seeing, the material will ghost direct light, and it's less durable in terms of scratches than other materials.

While I wish Oakley did a better job explaining lens technology and materials, other than to say theirs is the best (and ignore its faults), you do have to know what you're getting into with Oakley glasses. They are not bullet proof glasses in the colloquial sense, but they are in the literal sense. Meaning they'll stop a lot of junk to getting to your eye, but the finish and cosmetic durability will be far below a hard acrylic or glass lens.

Oakley is still pretty much at the top in terms of clarity and distortion, but when your issues come down to the lens material itself I'm not sure you can blame the company for having sub-par optics.

 

[oldscooliron]

Thank you very much for explaining that! Why don't I see the ghost images with the grey lens? That has me puzzled. I just went outside & looked at the street light with the H.I. Persimmons lens & I can barely see one ghost image to the right not the left but this lens has the iridium coating. When looking through the regular Persimmon you can the 2 extra images. I'd keep the H.I. Persimmons but that 2% darker really darkens thing up for me. I was thinking maybe the H.I. Yellow?

 

[digi7alph0enix]

Thank you very much for explaining that! Why don't I see the ghost images with the grey lens? That has me puzzled. I just went outside & looked at the street light with the H.I. Persimmons lens & I can barely see one ghost image to the right not the left but this lens has the iridium coating. When looking through the regular Persimmon you can the 2 extra images. I'd keep the H.I. Persimmons but that 2% darker really darkens thing up for me. I was thinking maybe the H.I. Yellow?

This is off topic but I can't resist- how do your neighbors feel about you going outside at night with sunglasses on to look at street lights? I'm sorry but the visual of this literally made me laugh out loud as I read your post.

 

[oldscooliron]

digi7alph0enix hopefully they didn't see! I stayed close to the front door & it's not very bright where I live & the street light is right above my driveway.

 

[NiGHTSx2]

It seems like all of the clear based lenses have this issue. Even a plain old Clear lens will produce the ghosting effect. Try a pair of Ruby Clear while driving at night, and you'll have a real fun time. I've seen this effect with Persimmon and Yellow (and all of their variants). So you don't have defective lenses or anything; this is normal. Just try to find the lens that produces the least distracting ghosting and go with that.

...and G26 isn't a good choice for evening driving. Oakley advises against using it for any sort of driving actually. I've used them before, but would say that the tint is definitely too dark for evening.

 

[Rustpot]

I don't know enough about lenses and optics to answer why it would with one color and not with another. Other than you're potentially getting dark enough to block it out, or the light reflecting off your cheeks is intensifying it or something like that.

Are all of the lenses the same? Meaning are they all the same size, cut, fit, etc?

I just took a few photos looking at my ceiling light/fan. The "bulbs" (the bright spot of light) are actually 3 smaller LEDs in one housing, so the ghosted image shows up as 3 small dots in a triangle. These are all M Frame lenses.

Yellow


Persimmon


Gold Iridium


Grey (This is an SI M Frame lens and I couldn't get the nose off easily, so the camera lens is set back further than the rest)


G26 (you can see why we're not recommending that one )