I’m watching the Padres/Dbacks (day) game. The Padres left fielder is wearing what appears to be glasses with orange-colored glasses. Anyone know what he gains with this color?
This site suggests that different colored lenses can be useful for different sky and lighting conditions, and that orange lenses are most useful for overcast/hazy skies, or indoor activities.
OTOH, if the player is wearing sunglasses with a reflective coating that happens to be orange, I’m not sure if those have the same effect.
Because I know lots of Deaf people, I know lots of people with retinitis pigmentosa. This is a progressive form of blindness that comes from the retina losing its photo-sensitivity because it becomes pigmented with dark spots. They start in the peripheral vision, and work their way inward.
For some reason, the gene for Usher’s syndrome, which is what RP + congenital deafness is called, is somewhat more common than RP by itself-- that is, RP in a hearing person.
People with RP find that they can often slow vision loss by wearing tinted glasses, and orange-tinted ones seem to work best. I’m not sure anyone knows why.
This does not mean that the player in question definitely has RP, but this is one reason a person might wear orange-tinted lenses.
Another reason a person might wear tinted lenses is Irlen’s syndrome. This is a vision processing problem where colors do not resolve, for some reason, and things that are black appear to shimmy and wiggle around to the person, because black is actually all color waves at once.
People with Irlen’s have a great deal of difficulty reading, and usually get a dyslexia misdiagnosis.
Tinted lenses can fix Irlen’s syndrome, but the tinting necessary is specific to the person. Most people require something that looks objectively purplish, but some do better with smokey or orange glasses, or even yellow ones.
The third vision problem I am aware of is people who are not, strictly speaking, albino, but what’s called “albinistic.” They have a little less pigment than they “should” given their genetic background, and so their eyes are very sensitive to light, to the point of not being able to focus well in bright light. They require tinted lenses, but rather than typical sunglasses that filter out all light equally, they use glasses that filter only some frequencies.
Of course, the player may not have a diagnosable issue at all, and may just prefer glasses of that color in bright sun. The player wants to filter out the light that might make glares that would interfere with seeing a ball, but not block so much light as to miss seeing something because it is “too dark.”
Here’s everything you want to know about tinted lenses. Specifically, when considering orange (not to be confused with amber). . .
Sunglasses with light-colored lenses such as yellow, orange and gold excel in moderate- to low-level light conditions. They provide excellent depth perception and also work well for both outdoor and indoor sports sunglasses. They also improve the visibility of objects, make surroundings appear brighter and block out blue light. However, yellow, orange or gold sunglass lenses may distort color.