Pinhole Glasses: A Practical And Inexpensive Solution To Vision Problems

By Author: Mike Lamb
Total Articles: 62
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Pinhole glasses are made of an opaque substance such as metal or plastic and not made of glass. The user looks through any of the many small holes in the material. These holes have the effect of reducing the width of the bundle of diverging rays coming from each point on the viewed object.

Pinholes can bring about clearer vision in all these conditions. By blocking these peripheral rays, and only letting into the eye those rays which pass through the central portion of the pupil, any refractive error in the lens or cornea is not noticed as much. The pupil may be wide open, but only the central portion is receiving light. The improvement in visual acuity can be striking.

There is no need to continually throw away old glasses and buy new, stronger ones. Unless the pinholes break, they can be used an entire lifetime. While pinholes are not as cheap as off-the-rack reading glasses, they are considerably cheaper than individual prescription glasses. For example, a person who is a little nearsighted but only needs clear distant vision for occasional TV viewing would find pinholes a cheaper solution than prescription ...
... glasses.

Multi-focal lenses provide a continuously variable curve that is supposed to give good vision at all distances. In reality, the distortion on either side of the center line is considerable and often too great for comfortable use. Pinholes eliminate this problem. Bifocals or trifocals are designed to provide a clear image only at fixed distances. Pinholes provide an improved image at ALL distances.

In many applications, such as alternating between watching TV and reading, they can easily take the place of those very expensive prescription lenses that are so lucrative for the anti-consumer eye doctor/optical industry alliance.

Pinhole eyeglasses work by allowing a narrow beam of light to enter the eye through these small perforations. This helps to reduce the size of the circle of confusion that is placed on the retina of the eye and can help to increase the field of depth in your vision.These glasses reduces brightness and peripheral vision,a part of vision that occurs outside the very center of gaze.So it should not be used while driving or while operating machinery. These glasses are not recommended for people with over 6 diopters of myopia,that is near- or short-sightedness where they see nearby objects clearly but distant objects appear blurred.

The eye doctors and the optical industry make a determined effort to keep pinhole glasses out of the hands of the public. They have even pressured the US government to conduct armed raids on pinhole suppliers and destroy their inventory.They see inexpensive pinholes as a threat to the lucrative business of selling overpriced prescription glasses and sunglasses.


Mike has been writing and publishing articles about health products. He recently came across a website on pinhole glasses which gave information about this old technique of using pinhole glasses for eyesight correction. Here's an article about pinhole glasses.