The Complete Handbook of Sunglass Lenses
A practical field reference for opticians, eyewear retailers, product designers, and serious end users who need to select, specify, and maintain sunglass lenses with confidence.
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
The practical reference for understanding, selecting, and maintaining sunglass lenses. No hype, just measurements, materials, and standards.
🔒30-day money-back guarantee — not right for you? Full refund, no questions asked.
About this book
Buying a sunglass lens is rarely just about looking good in the sun. A pilot needs neutral color perception and polarization to cut haze. A trail builder needs impact resistance and scratch tolerance. A fishing guide needs maximum contrast in shallow water. Retailers and lab technicians need to translate customer needs into lens specs without guesswork. This handbook is built for those decisions.
It covers the full life cycle of a lens: the materials (CR-39, polycarbonate, Trivex, glass, and the newer high-index options), the filter categories and UV standards, the coatings that actually do something versus those that only add cost, and the optical tests used to verify performance. It also explains how to measure base curve, prismatic error, and polarization efficiency, and what those numbers mean in practice. A dedicated decision chapter walks through real scenarios and the lens specifications that solve them.
Maintenance, troubleshooting, and business chapters cover lens care, scratch repair limits, coating failure diagnosis, and how to build a service or retail operation around lens replacement and customization. The final chapters look at the regulatory landscape and emerging materials. Throughout, the tone is neutral and practical: the goal is to make you a better buyer and a better advisor to customers, not to sell you a particular brand.
Reader Reviews
Ryan Nelson
★★★★★Finally a reference that talks about lenses like an engineer, not a salesman. The first chapter alone cleared up stuff I'd been guessing at for years - the section on how visible light and UV are actually filtered by tint versus coating is worth the price. I run a small eyewear shop and I've already changed how I talk to customers about polarized versus just dark lenses. It's dry, but it's supposed to be dry. I keep it behind the counter, not on the coffee table.
Michael Adams
★★★★★I bought this because I was tired of manufacturer spec sheets that all claim the same numbers. The book gives you the actual test methods and standards references, so you can compare a cheap lens and a premium lens on the same scale. The chapter on base curve and how it relates to optical error was something I couldn't find anywhere else. I've recommended it to two other opticians already.
George Young
★★★★★It's a solid reference, no question, but I wasn't expecting it to be so academic. Some of it could have been edited down. The first chapter goes deep into the physics of light absorption, which is great if you're an optical engineer, but a lot of it didn't help me pick a better lens for my fishing boat. The later chapters on choosing lenses are better - I just wish the book started there. Still, it's honest and it's got real data, which is rare.
Ryan White
★★★★★This book answered a question that drove me nuts for years: why do my cheap driving glasses give me a headache? Chapter One explains prismatic error and how it's caused by poor base curve matching. I swapped to lenses with the right base curve and the headaches stopped. The chapter on coatings also saved me from wasting money on an 'anti-reflective' layer that was just a marketing line. Great buy for anyone who spends all day outdoors.