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Hey all im mostly a lurker commenting on p&m blogs and such.

Anyways what i wanted to discuss is the problem i have with painting mini's suffering from:

(wiki):
"Hyperopia, also known as farsightedness, longsightedness or hypermetropia, is a defect of vision caused by an imperfection in the eye (often when the eyeball is too short or when the lens cannot become round enough), causing difficulty focusing on near objects, and in extreme cases causing a sufferer to be unable to focus on objects at any distance. As an object moves toward the eye, the eye must increase its power to keep the image in focus on the retina. If the power of the cornea and lens is insufficient, as in hyperopia, the image will appear blurred.
Hyperopia, and restoring of vision with convex lens.

People with hyperopia can experience blurred vision, asthenopia, accommodative dysfunction, binocular dysfunction, amblyopia, and strabismus.

Hyperopia is often confused with presbyopia,[2][3] another condition that frequently causes blurry near vision.[4] Presbyopes who report good far vision typically experience blurry near vision because of a reduced accommodative amplitude brought about by natural aging changes with the crystalline lens.[4] It is also sometimes referred to as farsightedness, since in otherwise normally-sighted persons it makes it more difficult to focus on near objects than on far objects.[5]

The causes of hyperopia are typically genetic and involve an eye that is too short or a cornea that is too flat, so that images focus at a point behind the retina. People with hyperopia can usually see distant objects well, but have trouble focusing on nearby objects."

So why did i start this thread? well simple i wanted to know how other people suffering from this painting mini'sm deal with it.
And also warn younger would be modellers/painters about this,
Because i have had it all my life but didnt realise it until i was about 14 and went to a real optician.
Because being young you can correct this problem using your small muscles surrounding your eyes for smaller periods of time,
but they will get exhausted when your focusing on something at a close distance say reading a book and painting mini's.
Hence i didnt know about my handicap until that late age.
It also made school work etc suffer.

But nowadays im 30 years old and have been peinting for periods the last 15 years or so.
But still painting and fiddling for longer periods does make my vision blurry.

The thing i have done to be able to paint is A: using contacts(duh), B: using my glasses on top of that!
C: only painting in natural light(it does make a great difference, sadly no late night painting and D: having a lamp with a built in magnifying glass for real detail work.
These things together makes me able to paint at a high standard but still i have to take a pause every 15 minutes or so.

Aaanyways enough ranting.

How do you people suffering from this deal with your built in "minipaintingmodellinghandicap"?

or maybe it's just me being stupid and stubborn enough to continue painting?

Thanks for reading and hopefully it could help someone suffering from the same problem.

/Cato.

This thread I posted about wearing glasses may be of interest to you.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/224664.page

I'm myopic, but only in one eye. My main problem area is distance. Generally in excess of 15-20m (in the case of streetsigns).

I wear glasses because monocles are so 19th Century.

well being nearsighted is no handicap when modelling, on the contrary you see better at very close ranges.

the problem im talking about is having it really hard making out details and such on small things.

and most of all it's a headsup for younger people (15 and below that get tired/ blurry vision when working /painting their mini's.
because as i stated in younger years people can go about not knowing.

When you have it you can also come across as a person with attention problems. (happened to me).

/Cato

I have the kind of farsightedness which everyone gets as they get older. It comes on when you are about 40 and just creeps up on you.

I realised a couple of years ago when I started to paint some 6mm figures after a long break from painting. I found I couldn't get them near enough my eyes to see them large enough without them going blurry.

So I went and got reading glasses.

Another tip is to paint under a bright light. It helps the pupil contract which improved focus.

I have x-ray vision, I can see through peoples clothes... Kidding, nothing wrong with my eyes,yet. Several of my friends have stigmatisms, and they had the Lasik eye surgery, they all swear by it. In fact, my dads eyes were so bad that he wore contacts and glasses together all the time, and I mean bada$$,Coke bottle glasses. He is also 74 years old, but wore glasses since he was a kid. He got the Lasik last year and now he sees fine. He even convinced insurance to pay for it. Is Lasik maybe an option for your particular eye disorders? I know you English guys have NHS, will it do anything on eye surgery,how does it work?

There's quite a lot available on NHS. I don't want Lasik at my age though.