It has always pleased me that when you tell new acquaintances you are an optician they almost always have a story to tell or some advice to ask for, making it easy to strike up a conversation. Often these stories are of how they have been ripped off or disappointed by opticians in the past, or they have genuine questions that it seems their usual optician has not had the skill or inclination to answer.
One such occasion recently was during the hot weather at a friend’s birthday celebration when a fellow party guest recounted her tale of a recent trip to a branch of a national multiple.
She showed me her new designer spectacles and told me how she had been sold them under false pretences as part of a deal. I didn’t like to tell her the sides needed shortening by 15mm as she was more concerned (as we sipped Prosecco and she squinted in the sunshine) that her prescription Ray-Ban sunglasses had proved unwearable and as such she had paid full price for her first pair without getting the expected benefit of a second pair discount.
My new friend told me how the frames were so wide on the Ray-Bans that they “just fell off” and that none of the staff could adjust them. The manager explained that nothing could be done, so she didn’t have to take them if she didn’t want to – how generous of them!
I estimated her prescription at around -2.50 and through the wonders of smart phone technology was able within a minute to find the sunglasses online so that I could confirm what I suspected to be the problem. Ordering standard lenses in highly wrapped sunglasses isn’t going to work when the lens is on a 2.00 or a 4.00 base and the frame requires a 6.00 or even an 8.00.
Flattening a wrap-around front usually splays the sides in a way that cannot be adjusted for so why do some opticians, particularly ones with really good ranges of prescription sunglasses persist in supplying the wrong lenses? The sad thing is that Prosecco Girl blamed Ray-Ban for this and not the optical chain.
Perhaps this is why Luxottica have finally started supplying prescription lenses in the majority of their most popular Ray-Ban sunglasses so that the correct base curve can be supplied as well as the lenses exactly matching the plano version in terms of tint, coating, and authentic Ray-Ban logo.
To Ray-Ban stockists this is a dream come true – we have certainly been suggesting it for a long time – and will I suppose enable Ray-Ban to keep topping the charts for ophthalmic frames and sunglasses for a while longer. The range is fabulous with some Ray-Bans accommodating up to -22.00D, yet even the world’s biggest optical brand can get it horribly wrong.
The new brochure (pictured) says how they have the three key measurements they need – lens base, wrap angle and pantoscopic tilt – to make the optician’s job so much easier. I’m afraid I disagree. Ray-Ban are to be commended for solving the problem of wrap and base curve but their understanding of pantoscopic tilt, in common with many opticians, is misguided.
Pantoscopic tilt is the angle between the visual axis in the primary position and the optical axis of the lens when passing through the centre of rotation of the eye, determined by measuring the inclination of the plane of the lenses to the vertical and assuming the vertical optical centres will be dropped 0.5mm for every degree of tilt.
Pantoscopic tilt is not the same as angle of side, although we must adjust angle of side to alter the pantoscopic tilt. Panto should always be the same right and left, but angles of side differ if one ear is lower than the other. Two identical frames will have different pantoscopic tilts on different patients depending on the height of their ears and the bridge of their nose and their side length to bend, and Ray-Ban should know better.
A lot of frames are virtually un-adjustable for tilt so it is more important than ever to take it into account when centring single vision lenses vertically, and that for progressive lenses we ensure either a tailor made lens is used or the tilt is as close as possible to 8-10 degrees if a standard freeform or traditionally surfaced lens is selected. With some practitioners admitting to remake rates of over 15% at CET events, and Prosecco Girl’s story all too familiar isn’t it time for the profession to take dispensing seriously?