Gold and pink metal frames hanging on a display rail in an optical shop, shot with a shallow depth of field.

Independent opticians · Est. TBD

The explaining is the appointment.

An independent practice with frames photographed on the faces wearing them, and a prescription you leave able to read for yourself.

Book an eye testRead your prescription

The width axis, dialled

EFPTOZ

Scroll and the row opens: one variable changed until the letters resolve, which is what a refraction is. This is a demonstration of a typeface’s width axis — not a sight test, and not a measure of anyone’s vision.

01 — The fitting wall

Frames on faces.

A frame is a proportion problem before it is a taste one. Five shapes, and what each one is actually doing on the face wearing it.

A black-and-white portrait of a bearded man wearing heavy dark rectangular acetate frames.
Heavy acetate, rectangle — depth in the rim carries a thick lens edge where it shows least.
A woman wearing oversized tortoiseshell frames during a sight check, one eye covered by a hand.
Oversized tortoiseshell — a wide eye size needs the bridge measured, not guessed.
An optician adjusting a trial frame on a seated man during a refraction.
A trial frame on the face — the shapes are tested where they will be worn, before a lens is cut.

What a fitting actually is

Four measurements and a conversation: where your pupils sit behind the lens, how the frame meets the bridge of your nose, how far the lens sits from your eye, and what you need to see clearly at what distance. The shape you like comes after that, not before it.

General information about eyewear — not clinical advice.

An optician's hands holding a trial frame with its numbered dials, against a plain blue-grey wall.
The trial frame itself — numbered dials that change one lens at a time, which is all a refraction is.
A young woman reading a book, holding it at her natural reading distance.
Near vision is measured where you actually hold the book, not where a chart says you should.
The lens apertures and numbered dials of a phoropter head, photographed close.

02 — Prescription, explained

Read your own script.

Five abbreviations do almost all the work on a spectacle prescription. None of them is complicated once someone says what it means.

SPH · Sphere
The main power of the lens, in dioptres. A minus number corrects short sight, a plus number long sight. The further from zero, the stronger the lens.
CYL · Cylinder
The extra power that corrects astigmatism — an eye curved more in one direction than another. A blank or zero here simply means none was found.
AXIS · Axis
The orientation of that cylinder, written between 1 and 180 degrees. It is a direction, not a strength: 180 is no stronger than 10.
PD · Pupillary distance
The distance between the centres of your pupils, in millimetres. It is what centres each lens in front of the eye it belongs to.
ADD · Addition
Extra plus power in the lower part of a varifocal or reading lens, for close work. It is added to the sphere, not measured separately.

Example only, not a real prescription — R −2.25 / −0.75 × 180, ADD +1.50. General information about eyewear, not clinical advice.

Thin metal-framed glasses resting on a dark surface, strip lights reflected across the lenses.

03 — Lenses & coatings

The part you look through.

Anti-reflective

A stack of thin layers that cuts the reflections off both faces of the lens. It is why people can see your eyes in a photograph, and why oncoming headlights stop doubling. How much it cuts depends on the coating and the lens, so we will show you rather than quote you a figure.

Hard coat

A harder surface layer applied over the lens material. Scratch-resistant, which is not the same as scratch-proof — anything sold as the second is being sold to you.

Photochromic

Darkens in ultraviolet light and clears again indoors. Worth knowing before you buy it: a car windscreen filters most UV, so the lens does far less behind the wheel than it does on a pavement.

A workshop cutting machine under a heavy spray of white coolant.
Edging — cutting the lens down to the shape of the frame — is done on a machine like this one, under a coolant spray that stops the lens burning. It is why the frame is chosen before the lens is cut.

04 — Inside the appointment

Inside a 40-minute test.

Four parts, in this order. Knowing which one you are in is most of what makes an eye test comfortable.

  1. 01

    History and symptoms

    What you have noticed, what you do all day, what you are wearing now. Screen distance, night driving, headaches, family history. Most of what shapes the rest of the appointment is decided here.

  2. 02

    Measurements

    An autorefractor takes a first estimate, and the pressure inside the eye is checked. Neither is the answer on its own — they are the starting point the rest of the test argues with.

  3. 03

    Refraction

    The phoropter, and the question you were expecting: better with one, or with two. One variable changes at a time until the letters resolve. There is no wrong answer, including “they look the same”.

  4. 04

    Health of the eye

    The slit lamp and a look at the back of the eye. This half is not about glasses at all, which is why an eye test is worth having even when your vision has not changed.

What a corrected lens does: parallel light converged to a single point on the retina. Forty minutes is how long this format takes, not a promise about your appointment. General information about eyewear — not clinical advice.

A person seated at a slit lamp with their chin on the rest, the instrument's optics in the foreground.
A slit lamp — a microscope and a controllable sheet of light, used to look at the front of the eye layer by layer.

05 — In the consulting room

Unhurried, on purpose.

The equipment in this room is ordinary for an independent practice, and that is the point: none of it is unusual, all of it is used properly, and the appointment is long enough to use it properly.

You will be told what each instrument does before it is pointed at you, and what it found afterwards. If something needs looking at again, we say so rather than book it in quietly.

A wall of eyeglass frames on display rails in an optical shop, casting shadows across the wall.

06 — Visiting

Come and try frames.

No appointment needed to try frames on. An eye test is booked, and takes about forty minutes.

Address
TBD
Telephone
TBD
Opening hours
TBD
Eye test fee
TBD
GOC registration
TBD
Book an eye test

Booking is not connected in this demonstration — the button goes nowhere on purpose, and every detail above reads TBD because this practice does not exist.