Anyone prefer older iridium to prizm lenses?

[OliveInkFade]

I remember a lot of cool marketing surrounding prizm at the time, and being intrigued by prizm trail etc. back in the mid 2010s.

Also a bit of a fan deep water prizm particularly on less bright days, and also prizm tungsten.

But the old iridium lenses, e.g. Gold Iridium Polarised, just have this feel that I haven’t been able to get from a prizm lens, particularly on bright days. Everything is balanced, not too saturated and no glare. I also prefer tungsten iridium to prizm tungsten as another comparison.

In full sun, almost as if prizm tunes in too much white to make colors pop, resulting in more glare? and they all have a rose boost which can make certain colors fatiguing after a while.

Don’t get me wrong, not saying they are terrible, just feel there is something special about some of the non prizm ones. Anyone else feel similar?

 

[kmbijit]

I remember a lot of cool marketing surrounding prizm at the time, and being intrigued by prizm trail etc. back in the mid 2010s.

Also a bit of a fan deep water prizm particularly on less bright days, and also prizm tungsten.

But the old iridium lenses, e.g. Gold Iridium Polarised, just have this feel that I haven’t been able to get from a prizm lens, particularly on bright days. Everything is balanced, not too saturated and no glare. I also prefer tungsten iridium to prizm tungsten as another comparison.

In full sun, almost as if prizm tunes in too much white to make colors pop, resulting in more glare? and they all have a rose boost which can make certain colors fatiguing after a while.

Don’t get me wrong, not saying they are terrible, just feel there is something special about some of the non prizm ones. Anyone else feel similar?

There are a few pros and cons on either side.

In the case of the most common lenses, the Prizm offerings actually turned out better. Eg, Prizm Grey, Prizm Black, Prizm Violet etc are much better than their legacy counterparts (Dark Grey, Black Iridium, Violet Iridium). Also, a lot of the newer Prizm lenses (DWP, SWP, Trail, Snow) etc were never offered in Iridium days.

But then, we also lost some amazing lenses - (Gold Iridium, as you rightly mentioned), Emerald Iridium, OO Red Iridium, OO Black Iridium, VR28, VR28 Black Iridium, Persimmon, G26 - just some of the lenses I really wish came back in some way or the other.

Oh, and welcome!

 

[AlanH]

I do miss the old base IR lens offerings. Not all prizm lenses are good to me. I know when i first started wearing them it gave me a headache and my eyes had to adjust.

I like the Prizm Sapphire, Jade, Violet, Road, and Deep Water.

Prizm Ruby isnt a Ruby at all, we lost Ruby in the transition. We lost Emerald (Epic mistake), lost ICE, and so many more. I wish they would give you the option for all of them still but they arent going to do that. The good news is that the 3rd party companies like Ikon, LineGear, Fuse, Revant, Seek, and SFX all offer fantastic alternatives and some as good or better than the original IR offerings. Thinking of Ice, Emerald and Ruby from Linegear as a prime example.

Emerald, Ice, and Ruby were my primary three lenses prior to the Prizm shift. Sometimes OO + Red

 

[MicahS]

There's a place for both as far as im concerned.

The two biggest issues as far as im concerned are that a) they dont typicaly offer thier "prizm sport" lens range in anything but sport frames and same for the "everyday" options and even snow and mx. Not even as replacment lenses. B) they have never replaced some of the better lens options they offered. No dark blue, no rich gold, no chrome (or highly mirrored)

Its not because they cant. After all, they offer nearly the full non prizm range in prescription. You can still get Ice, Gold, Emerald, chrome, ruby, shallow blue, deep blue, torch, + red, ect ect.

Back in the day you could pretty much get any lens in any frame. If not as a specific sku, then an accessory lenses. Now the lens options, especially replacments are pretty underwhelming.

Ive mentioned the snow and mx lenses in the past but what about sage gold, Argon, black ice and garnet. This dosent even cover all the mx prizm versions, which are completly different than their non MX versions.

Its so weird that they will say they dont want to release non sport frames with sport lenses because they are designed for sport, but then release overpriced high fashion outerwear masquerading as true technical outerwear. Its a strange dichotomy.

 

[WildWires]

Lots of comments so far that I’d echo too. I feel like they have ‘slimmed’ their lens offering since prizm came out. They use to offer almost every lens in polarized and regular, and many many colorway sku’s for every frame they released.

I remember about 12 years ago I went into an Oakley store to purchase some lens for my flak jackets. I specifically asked for VR28 BIP. The sales person grabbed them for me and said ‘I’m surprised you want these, most people just want black, blue, or whatever color’. I’d guess 80% of their sales were only about 20% of the lens offerings at that time.

Not saying it’s bad or good, but I wonder if some of Oakley’s original lenses patents were expiring about 10 years ago and they switched to prizm for that reason too.


Either way, great thread and nostalgic topic.

 

[AlanH]

There's a place for both as far as im concerned.

The two biggest issues as far as im concerned are that a) they dont typicaly offer thier "prizm sport" lens range in anything but sport frames and same for the "everyday" options and even snow and mx. Not even as replacment lenses. B) they have never replaced some of the better lens options they offered. No dark blue, no rich gold, no chrome (or highly mirrored)

Its not because they cant. After all, they offer nearly the full non prizm range in prescription. You can still get Ice, Gold, Emerald, chrome, ruby, shallow blue, deep blue, torch, + red, ect ect.

Back in the day you could pretty much get any lens in any frame. If not as a specific sku, then an accessory lenses. Now the lens options, especially replacments are pretty underwhelming.

Ive mentioned the snow and mx lenses in the past but what about sage gold, Argon, black ice and garnet. This dosent even cover all the mx prizm versions, which are completly different than their non MX versions.

Its so weird that they will say they dont want to release non sport frames with sport lenses because they are designed for sport, but then release overpriced high fashion outerwear masquerading as true technical outerwear. Its a strange dichotomy.

Amen to all of this.

 

[AlanH]

Lots of comments so far that I’d echo too. I feel like they have ‘slimmed’ their lens offering since prizm came out. They use to offer almost every lens in polarized and regular, and many many colorway sku’s for every frame they released.

I remember about 12 years ago I went into an Oakley store to purchase some lens for my flak jackets. I specifically asked for VR28 BIP. The sales person grabbed them for me and said ‘I’m surprised you want these, most people just want black, blue, or whatever color’. I’d guess 80% of their sales were only about 20% of the lens offerings at that time.

Not saying it’s bad or good, but I wonder if some of Oakley’s original lenses patents were expiring about 10 years ago and they switched to prizm for that reason too.


Either way, great thread and nostalgic topic.

What I love about ME for this very reason. Man knows what people want. Every single lens color is available for every frame. There are no restrictions. Its going to be slow going but eventually O' will lose this core market and M.E. will take them all if they guide the ship right and provide a variety of frames over the next 5 to 10 years.

 

[alol]

I think most people would look more kindly (having experienced both) on the iridium than the prizm lenses.
That’s the battle for anyone with the lenses from the Halton days, 24k Gold Iridium, Ruby, Fire, Chrome, VR28 et al. Trying to ensure they don’t delaminate or get scratched. DWP seems quite durable and for me the best of the later stuff. Touch wood I haven’t had any DWP lenses delam on me.

 

[Rockman]

There are a few pros and cons on either side.

In the case of the most common lenses, the Prizm offerings actually turned out better. Eg, Prizm Grey, Prizm Black, Prizm Violet etc are much better than their legacy counterparts (Dark Grey, Black Iridium, Violet Iridium). Also, a lot of the newer Prizm lenses (DWP, SWP, Trail, Snow) etc were never offered in Iridium days.

But then, we also lost some amazing lenses - (Gold Iridium, as you rightly mentioned), Emerald Iridium, OO Red Iridium, OO Black Iridium, VR28, VR28 Black Iridium, Persimmon, G26 - just some of the lenses I really wish came back in some way or the other.

Oh, and welcome!

M-Frame heater in blue Iridium was my favorite.

 

[cheshirecat]

I absolutely convinced that the old Iridium lenses are many times more durable than the modern PRIZM lenses. In my opinion, PRIZM lenses were created mainly to drain users wallets, because you have to replace them regularly. For example, this is what happened to my PRIZM Gray lenses just because I touched my laptop. I just touched it, there was no impact or anything like that.

I’m not even going to talk about the color options that existed before — when it comes to that, Iridium has no equal.

The only real advantage of PRIZM lenses is that they increase contrast in certain parts of the color spectrum, and that they are crystal clear and handle glare very well.