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Fly Tying
Dan K

Eye magnifiers

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I just started tying again after a 40 year hiatus. At 64 I wear drugstore magnifying glasses to read but they are too weak for flytying. Any recommendations for magnifiers for tying? Of course Ive been on Amazon and Im aware of whats sold for hobbyist. Im hoping I can get some strong recommendations specifically for fly tying.

Thanks in advance!

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I need to troll drugstores. I don’t think anyone makes readers high enough for me. I wear 2.5 just to read, I think I need at least 6X to tie down to 18 or 20.

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I've used store bought readers but I think they didn't go higher than 3.5x. One day when my salt water club was doing a tying demonstration at an Orvis store. I saw a pair of 5x tying glasses. They weren't cheap but I brought them anyway and they helped tremendously in tying small flies. I have condition in my right eye that messes with my depth perception which the higher magnification didn't help with. When I went for my annual eye exam last year and needed new lenses my progressive wear everywhere glasses and new ones for my reading glasses, I asked my optometrist if he could make me glasses that I could use for reading and tying. And he did, left lens is 4.5x and the right is 5x and he wrote into the prescription something to help with the depth perception which helps tremendously. At some point those cheap store bought just don't cut it. If you get to the point where you need prescription reading glasses see if you can get your optometrist to make you a pair that works for reading and tying.

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get higher power drugstore reading glasses

 

i use 1.5 for reading but 3.0 for tying

I have worn glasses for 58 years. Recently had cataract surgery and now only use readers. Flytire has the right idea here. Drugstore readers (Walmart - dollar stores - etc) are really cheap. Buy different strengths and experiment. I found lense shapes important also for tying. The frame quality is really lacking in these cheap glasses. Once you have refined what you need then the link he provided in a latter post is a good source of better quality readers.

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I got a magnifying light as a gift that either clamps or has a pedestal. Holy cow, I had no idea what I was missing. I wore readers for tying but had a little trouble with depth perception and smaller flies were frustrating. I still use the readers because the magnifier is so close. But even for larger flies, thread control, spacing, wrapping, all of the things are so much easier. My roll top desk has crappy lighting. I mounted a cheap fluorescent light but it didn't cut it. The LEDs that ring the magnifier are perfect lighting for the work.

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I got a magnifying light as a gift that either clamps or has a pedestal. Holy cow, I had no idea what I was missing. I wore readers for tying but had a little trouble with depth perception and smaller flies were frustrating. I still use the readers because the magnifier is so close. But even for larger flies, thread control, spacing, wrapping, all of the things are so much easier. My roll top desk has crappy lighting. I mounted a cheap fluorescent light but it didn't cut it. The LEDs that ring the magnifier are perfect lighting for the work.

 

As you found out there are two parts to fly tying magnification. The first part is the magnification; but the greater the magnification, the worse the depth of field because less of the "field" is in focus.

 

What will help is to get the brightest possible lighting, even so far as to use 2 LED lamps. The biology is that the brighter the lighting, the more the pupil will constrict. The smaller the pupil, the greater the depth of field.

 

Before we has all these auto exposure cameras, photographers had to set the F-stop of the lens which is the lens opening. The higher the F stop, the smaller the opening, and the greater the depth of field. That is why a pinhole camera has everything in focus. The opening is so small, the depth of field extends to infinity. Similarly, the smaller your pupil opening, the more of the fly tying area will be in focus.

 

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I have the OptiVISOR headband that I use for long periods on the bench, they have interchangable lenses and allow you to focus under the visor for normal viewing. But most of the time I'm using +3.00 readers to sit and tie a few, had to get used to looking over the top for normal viewing. I wear glasses (bifocals) for normal wear but could not adjust to moving my head around to focus at the bench.

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