Retinal image quality during oblique gaze through spectacle lenses: plastic vs. glass.

The optical performance of standard plastic and glass spectacle lenses was compared at increasing angles of oblique gaze up to 40 degrees on either side of the optic axis of the lenses. For this purpose, the border enhancement method was used, a method which is suitable for monitoring small order changes in the retinal image. It was found that the enhancement band width increases with obliquity of gaze in all cases, signifying a deterioration in the retinal image. A glass lens will exaggerate this deterioration to some extent, whereas a plastic lens will exaggerate it to the greatest extent. It is shown that the relatively poorer performance of plastic is due to a relatively larger amount of narrow-angle scattering than is produced by glass.