Does the lens color matter to my sport?
The tint of a lens in a sunglass is important to consider when choosing the perfect sport sunglass for you. It goes much further than deciding what tint looks best because it can make all the difference in how you perform in your sport. There are factors to consider when you are choosing the right tint, such as the lighting conditions of your environment and how that’s relates to your activity. The tint that works for someone who cycles on a sunny day is different than the one needed for someone who golfs on a cloudy day.
We put together a list of tints and their ideal use cases.
The Purpose of Different Tints:
Smoke (Gray)
- Sport: Versatile. All outdoor sports in bright light conditions
- Purpose: A smoke (gray) tint helps preserve 100% normal color perception while reducing brightness and glare.
Brown
- Sport: Fishing, golf, hunting, and hiking
- Purpose: Useful for improving contrast on grass and against blue skies. This tint heightens contrast and visual acuity. It also reduces glare and blocks blue light, which only brightens vision on cloudy days.
Enliven Golf (Green)
- Sport: Golf primarily, tennis and baseball
- Purpose: This tint is specifically designed to read terrain and track golf balls against the greens and a blue sky. Using Color Capture technology, Enliven tunes the wavelengths of light that matter most making greens, blues, and reds pop with more definition.
AC or All Conditions (Red)
- Sport: Cycling and running
- Purpose: A lens with a red tint increases contrast by blocking blue light. This heightened contrast is great for partly cloudy conditions. The lens tint is not as dark as a smoke, meaning you can see well even when conditions dim while jogging or riding through the shade of overhead trees.
EC or Extreme Contrast (Purple)
- Sport: Tennis, golf, and baseball
- Purpose: The EC (Extreme Contrast) tint provides natural color perception that shades the eyes. A lens with a purplish tint balances the color and provides contrast against green backgrounds, making it easier to see objects like tennis or golf balls.
When it comes to tints for sport sunglasses there is no “one size fits all” solution. Although you may admire a certain tint color, it might not be the best for your particular sport. Keep this guide in mind when purchasing your next pair of sport sunglasses or expanding the functionality of your current Tifosi frames by getting additional lenses of a new tint.
