Thu, 14 Aug 2008
Orange Sunglasses and Chromatic Aberation
I bought a new sunglasses for use on my bicycle. Somebody recommended orange colour because of supposedly better levelling between shade and light (which I often need, esp. on the forest roads), so I went for orange ones. I have discovered that when riding a bycicle, I see the edges of shadows coloured asi if my eye had chromatic aberation:
The edges where the sunny part is nearer to me tend to be blueish, while the opposite edges are yellowish. It is only visible when in move. When I stop, the aberation disappears. Can anybody explain this? The "when moving only" part could be explained by focusing to a different part, and seeing the shadows only marginally. Or is it a known optical illusion?
2 replies for this story:
va wrote:
I can't say anything to your "error" (never seen such thing), but I think orange color is not a good choice. I use sunglasses on a motorcycle and I have had several colors (mostly orange or grey - theese are the top sellers), now I strongly prefer blue and I can also recommend yellow. When you use orange, brown or grey, then the world looks like it is cloudy or dark and in theese conditions I can't fully enjoy my ride. Yellow sunglasses has the opposite effect - it seems to be nice weather even if it's cloudy and eyes are very comfortable. Blue ones are neutral in this way (no "weather effect" for me), the light is very comfortable for my eyes and I think they have the effect of "boosting" the colors of semaphores (other sunglasses - including yellow - have IMHO opposite effect) - which is maybe not such important on bicycle. :-)
Vasek Stodulka wrote:
^ That was me. :-)