The wrong tint is its own hazard. Too dark and you are guessing at a trip edge in a stairwell. Too light and you are squinting on a roof by eleven, which is exactly when glasses get pushed up and left there. Choosing a lens is not about taste. It is about the light you spend most of your shift in.
The five, and where each one earns its keep
- Clear. Indoors and nights: fit-out, mechanical rooms, night shifts under floodlights. Anti-fog coated, and the safe default when you do not know where the day will take you.
- Amber. Gray days and low light. It lifts contrast, so edges, levels and holes read more clearly under cloud or at dusk. Anti-fog and anti-scratch coated.
- Smoke. Bright days. The everyday outdoor pair, UV400, for excavation, scaffolding and anything in the sun.
- Mirror. Full sun. A silver mirror coat and UV400, for roofs, crane cabs and open sites where glare comes off every surface.
- Welding. Shade 5, for gas cutting and brazing. Not for arc welding.
A word on shade
On a tint chart, shade is loose talk for how dark a lens looks. On a welding lens it is a number, and the number matters. Shade 5 is made for the glare off a cutting torch or a brazing flame. It is not made for an arc. If you are striking one, you need a proper welding helmet.
If you cannot pick one
Pick for the worst light, not the best. Someone who moves between a bright yard and a dim warehouse is safer in clear all day than in smoke for half of it. A lens that is too dark indoors costs you more than one that is a little light outside.
Plenty of people end up with two. Jo, a crane operator, puts it simply: "Mirror on the crane, amber in the cabin. Same frame, same fit." Every tint sits in the one wraparound frame, so the second pair fits exactly like the first. And if you get it wrong, swap to another tint within sixty days, site worn or not.
Buy for the light you have. Change pairs when the light changes.
