What is the best OPTICAL AID you ever used in your model building? NAMES, SOURCES, PRICES, would be helpful.
ART GORDON
A good bright worklight, and a pair of bi-focals. I never had the bi-focals before I started back on my trains last year, and I found them to really be great. Still, I have a full-sized pair of reading glasses that I use for the computer, and also for under-table wiring work where I need close-up vision while looking up, not down.
Think of a camera. You get better depth-of-field in bright light than in dim light, because you can use a higher f-stop. Your eyes work the same way. Give them the same break.
My optomotrist also suggested cleaning my glasses regularly with liquid hand soap, and patting them dry. Even when they don’t look dirty while you’ve got them on, if it’s been more than a few days, clean them again. You’ll be surprised at the improvement.
Optivisor.
You should also be able to get them at a well-stocked hobby shop.
Andre
it’s time you go see an optometrist…if you can’t see the small stuff with your eyes then glasses are in order…sorry,…but we are all getting old and a lot of us are wearing them now…I use a pair of +2 reading glasses for the fine details…you can get them at a drugstore or wally world…chuck[8D]
The reduced aperture that results when your pupil contracts does help with depth of field, but it has a major drawback -loss of resolution. As the aperture of an optical device shrinks, so does the ability of the system to separate close objects, even when uppin the power. Magnification helps to overcome that problem to an extent, but at the expense of brightness. The Mark I eyeball is not a magnifying device, so that part of the fix can only be accomplished by another lense, either in the form of bifocals or with a visor.
As for the clean glasses, the eyes are not sensitive enough to detect the changes in light between “dirty” and "clean eyeglass lenses unless we are talking opacity. This is also true in optical systems such as telescopes and binoculars. Specs on lenses do have one drawback and that is loss of contrast due to diffraction and light-scattering. So, the optometrist is correct in a sense, because specs cause loss of contrast and therefore annoying views. They don’t impart a sufficient light gathering loss to be noticeable.
I got a book light for four dollars that clips to my hat to provide extra light. Being a youngin I don’t need magnification on my work yet. I saw a nifty thing at my hobby shop though; it was a magnifying glass with a small yet powerful light built in, it even had a small section of it for extra close magnification. It was about five bucks don’t remember the brand, but give Railroad Hobbies a call at (208) 453-9211.