Monday, March 27, 2017

The case for custom EyePal aperture diameters, vision challenges and their applications


Over the past 15 years we’ve received notes, emails and calls about the EyePal aperture diameters and the depth of field they produce. The communications are from those afflicted with illnesses and the resulting effects on their vision.
In one case, despite all the attempts at a lens solution by his eye care specialist, the gentleman still couldn’t see what he needed when aiming his rifle. We met him at the Springfield Gun Show in 2009 and at that time he was 64 years old. He said that he had a distorted cornea since birth.
Using our Benjamin Sheridan air rifle sporting a ghost ring aperture and aiming at a target 10 meters away, he said that both sights and the target were in the blur. With an EyePal Rifle applied on his glasses in his line of sight, he said “WOW – you tricked my eye!  How did you do that?” I said, “I didn’t do it! I just put an aperture in your sightline. The aperture did it.”
He bought the EyePal Rifle kit and that’s the last we saw or heard of him.
There you have it, a shooter with a life-long vision challenge and just a small comment about his reaction to his new sight picture.
But wait – there’s more than meets the eye with another shooter, a veterinarian and a shotgun champion. He call one day last year and started the conversation saying his diabetes changes his vision and is not corrected by his prescription. Would the EyePal help in any way? Having a good number of customers with diabetes, I answered yes. After a few more calls commenting on the larger diameter apertures I made for him, he said the he was now well satisfied with the results of having a larger field of view complete with depth of field and he was now back in championship form for competition.
His experiences with the larger EyePal aperture fostered and produced the EyePal Shotgun kit for the ever-growing number of shotgun hobbyists.

Feedback contributes to unique solutions!

Customer's cataract issue and sight picture

Hello Charlie

Nice to hear from you.

I can’t believe it has been 3 years since I ordered the EyePals, they are still working well and sticking properly.

Not doing too well in competitions these days, took part in one yesterday, (10 m Air Pistol) had some back pain which did not help, but I’m ever optimistic in improving.

A little saga in the 3 years since using the EyePal:
About 3 years ago I had a cataract in my right eye so I could shoot with it, previously been using my left dominant eye. I had to wait a couple of months after the surgery before I could get the correct prescription, then the eye started to become cloudy again , the optician said it was due to thickening of the capsule, so made an appointment with the original surgeon for YAG laser posterior capsulotomy.

Later I found that when using the EyePal I could see a cloudy patch at the bottom 1/3 of the aperture, so back to the consultant, I explained I shoot in competitions and sight through a tiny aperture and could see this fuzzy area. He explained this was at the top of the capsule as the image is upside down. So another YAG laser treatment to remove more of the capsule.
All in all this took about 2 years.

Apparently this thickening occurs in around 20% of cases following cataract surgery.

A friend at the club mentions to me, from time to time, that he would prefer the aperture on the EyePal was a little larger. Have you heard this from anyone else at all ?

Kind regards,

David