For General Purpose use, the Dark Grey/smoke lenses are the most popular. They do not distort colors, they reduce glare to provide day-long comfort, and reduce ultraviolet (UV) light to a safe level. If you go to an eye doctor for a sunglass prescription, he'll most likely recommend Dark Grey/smoke lenses for general purpose use. The Military has been using Dark Grey/smoke lenses for over 45 years. However some other lens colors can provide sports specific attributes.
Lens Tints and Coatings
Gray and Gray-Green tints: The most common type of lens color. Transmits all colors evenly without changing value of color. Light enough not to impair vision, yet dark enough to provide overall protection from glare. Excellent for bright sunny days. Grey tint is best for bright light situations like water sports because it blocks out the brightest of the suns rays.
Dark Amber or Brown lens tints: A warmer, slightly brighter lens than the gray. Especially good at blocking the blue light commonly found in diffused light such as one might experience on a cloudy day. Brown/Amber can improve both contrast and depth perception, reduce glare and is a good all-around choice if you live in an area with changeable weather patterns. Brown is great for applications where distances need to be constantly judged, like tennis or golf or skiing or other sports requiring acute visual perception and contrast differentiation. Brown is also best for lower light situations, like fishing in the late afternoon or early morning. Brownish tint lens helps highlight the different contrasts in green colors and enhance visual acuity on the golf course
Yellow Lens Tints: Improves contrast, reduces glare, perserves sharpness. High Intensity tint for maximum sight performance during low light driving. Excellent for Night riding, overcast, haze, or fog conditions. The brightness of this lens makes it the choice of many mountainbikers, shooters and cross-country skiers. Yellow enhances contrast by filtering out the somewhat scattered, out-of-focus blue light from the scene. Hunters, pilots, and tennis players find them helpful for this purpose.
Red Lens: Help block blue light, thereby improving contrast. Offers high contrast and very soothing to the eyes. Improves road visibility. Many people feel that rose tinted lenses are more comfortable for long periods of time than other lenses. Great for computer users to reduce eyestrain and glare.
Blue Lens: Blue-tinted lenses are endorsed by the USPTA for tennis professionals and were provided to linepersons in the 2000 French Open. Blue is a contrast lens and reduces glare from visible white light (such as light reflected from mist, fog, snow, water).
The following is a guide for specific uses and the lens color that provides the best protection for that activity.
* Baseball, Football, Soccer, and other outdoor action sports (grey/smoke, or brown/amber)
* Beach Vacation ( grey/smoke)
* Boating/Sailing (grey/smoke, or brown/amber, with added mirror coating)
* Fishing in bright sun (grey/smoke, or brown/amber, with polarizing filter)
* Golf (smoke/grey on sunny days and amber or yellow on cloudy days)
* Hunting (yellow, with anti-reflective coating on cloudy days; and smoke/grey in sunlight)
* Racquetball (amber or yellow, with anti-reflective coating or clear)
* Skiing/Snowmobiling (smoke/grey, or brown, with added mirror coating)
* Tennis (amber or yellow indoors or cloudy days; smoke/grey on sunny days)
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