I went ahead and purchased a magnifying visor to help with my deteriorating eyesight. It seems I am suffering from the inability to focus up close, even though I have been near sighted my whole life. Quite frustrating really. You may recall that I have a magnifying lamp that I mentioned
here, but I find it to be problematic in some instances as I bang paint brush and knife handles on it as I'm trying to work.
The visor gets around this rather well. I ordered
this one from Amazon for $6.85 and it arrived in two days.
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| From Amazon.com |
The knob adjustment for size can be difficult, and the plastic pad across the forehead a bit sweaty, but it works pretty well. It has the fixed magnifier, another inside the visor that flips down, and the small one that swings down on the outside. I did a couple of hour session with it last night and it worked fairly well. The light is pretty good and runs off of two AAA batteries. It can be adjusted vertically and horizontally. One word of caution. Be careful when flipping the visor up. I had a few instances where I was tilting my head down with the visor up and it flipped down of its own accord. The visor drove my glasses into the bridge of my nose, which is annoying at best and painful at worst. The hinge adjustment knobs seem to be difficult to tighten sufficiently to totally remove this possibility. And then my wife says it makes me look like James Hom from Blade Runner.
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| I got it from here. Where he got it from is anybody's guess. |
In other news (ie putting this here to remind myself), Warlord Paul has listed some more blogs that may be of interest
here. Orlygg at has a post about Oldhammer in the States
here. I want to get back into 3rd edition, but I fear I'm so far behind on painting etc that it will lead to stress related illness. In any event I will tap into what is going on.
And lastly just to inform those of you who are into 1/72 in general and fantasy at this scale in particular I stumbled across a blog that was new to me.
Cheap Fantasy Minis is definitely worth your time and ranks highly, in my opinion, as a resource for those interested in this niche of a niche.
Had a great weekend. My son's team won their first flag football game of the season, and my back only hurt marginally as I got thrown around. Also the weather actually felt cool with a breeze. I have some volunteering to do at the school today and a project to design some sort of background for a Tai Chi presentation. Other than that I hope to get these figures painted and play out my next battle for Talomir. You can see the battle reports that have already come in at
Talomir Tales. My Tereken forces were defeated and there is now an enforced peace between us and Altengard for the next two years.
Thanks for the short review. Since I wear glasses I always stepped back from buying me one of those. I really worried about breaking something when the lenses are snapping down or something. Think I'll just stick with my plan of buying a magnifying lamp.
ReplyDeleteI wear glasses as well, and still find the visor best - this is the one I use http://diplomatist2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/booty-call.html
DeleteWhatever works for you. There are also many different styles of visor and some which are more like glasses.
DeleteI think the visor's a good move. My painting has improved since I got one - I found that my depth perception was shot when using a magnifying glass.
ReplyDeleteHow much cooler can it get than looking like someone from 'Blade Runner'?
I realized I needed some sort of magnification awhile ago. Obviously it needs to be hands free and I have run into the problem of knocking things about with the brush or knife handle, so some kind of goggles seemed the next step. And I agree, looking like I'm an extra in Blade Runner is not a bad thing.
DeleteInteresting. Is it better than wearing strong 3.5 magnification reading glasses then, which is what I do...
ReplyDeleteHi Legatus, in all honesty probably not. Those never occurred to me. Perhaps an ingrained aversion to something that I think is for "old people" as my parents have handfuls of those lying around. The older one gets the older one's definition of old gets. To paraphrase my neighbor.
Deletei have the same visor. The only issue, and very minor at that, i've had with it is the screw holding the little magnifying lens on becomes loose and then the magnifier flops around and gets in the way. Usually it happens in the middle of a painting session, when i have no screw driver handy. I have found the built in LEDs exceptionally helpful, provided the battery has a good charge.
ReplyDelete-john
Hi John, yes the led is great. I'll keep the loose screw in mind.
DeleteInteresting - never found a visor that was practical while wearing glasses. May have to reconsider. Oh, and congrats on your son's team victory!
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Kasper
Hi Kasper, thanks. I'll try it without the glasses just to compare, I never thought to try it without them.
DeleteSorry to hear about your eyesight issues - and I *really* hope you don't suffer the same fate as the guy from Blade Runner!
ReplyDeleteHi Hugh, that's why I have a Voight-Kampff machine and an LAPD 2019 blaster by my painting desk.
DeleteThanks for letting others know about my blog, Sean!
ReplyDeleteNo problem 1Mac, it's a great blog. Might I suggest that you add the followers widget to your blog to make it extra easy for people to follow. Obviously people can follow other ways but it is just one more way to encourage people to follow you.
ReplyDeleteI do have some follower widgets, though they are all at the bottom of the blog layout. I suppose I could make them more visible.
ReplyDeleteWe need pics of it in use!!
ReplyDeleteHi Ray, I'll get on that for you.
DeleteI also have very poor eyesight. I have been thinking of bifocals for when I can next affordnew glasses. I have wanted to give soething lie this a try, though.
ReplyDeleteHi Justin, the visor was way cheaper than I imagined at under $7, but a quick and easy solution might be what Legatus said, those department store reading glasses. I think you can get them at most chain stores, pharmacies and they usually have several different magnifications. Put a figure in your pocket, or something small and try on a few pairs. I need to put in more time with it but I think it will help a lot.
DeleteThat's just what I did; peering at an 18mm Copplestone Barbarian to see if I could see anything at all. I have just moved from 3.0 magnification to 3.5 but they don't do anything stronger!
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