X-Men Cyclops Lenses... any optomistrists here?

A few years ago I had been searching to create the closest thing possible to the prop lenses Cyclops has in the 3 X-Men films. Most people probably know that there were different lenses released for the public than the ones used in the movie. Something to do with the red tint.

Basically as many people have seen sunglasses come with a variety of mirrors, but there isn't a single one that comes with an all red mirror the way they were made for the X-Men movies. I saw on a few sites that they gave him headaches and a slew of other reasons that make them unsafe to wear. The red mirror of today that's generally sold it gradient, and usually gets orange and yellow depending on which way you look at them. Here are a few pictures to illustrate my point. These are a pair of the X-Men like style called Ruby Iridium that was released at the time. While it looks similar, it suffers from the multi-colored mirror I'm talking about.






Here is a picture of the prop lenses that I was trying to duplicate. Just glancing at the pictures you should be able to tell how much different they really are from the commercially available glasses.




Well, after searching forever and speaking to different people I finally was able to find a formula of coatings to create the desired effect. Funny really, because it said it in an article I found online, although slightly vague. I went to my local optometrist and had a pair of lenses made for my Juliet's that are pictures below.








Basically what it is is a died red lens, with an Anti-reflective coating on BOTH sides, and a silver mirror on the INSIDE of the lenses. This has to be the correct way to do it, and seeing that the silver coating on the inside of the lenses is evident on the propstore's pictures, not to mention the creator himself told me how he made them, this has got to be how I made the lenses above.

Now the weird part. I went to have another pair made by the same optometrist, using the SAME formula. But this time, instead of being the red pictured above, they came out really maroon looking. The only way you could tell they were red is if you looked through them. It makes no sense that they didn't come out the same when I used the same method to make them.

The only thing I can think of is that the order of the AR Coating going over the solid mirror, or under it might have affected it that much. But my optometrist seems to think that wouldn't have mattered. We argued a little while about it when I brought them back today. I printed the pictures above and brought them to him so he could see the desired effect. He said what I need is died red lenses with a silver flash mirror on the front of the lenses, as opposed to the inside. The thing I was thinking though, is wouldn't a silver flash mirror on the front of the lenses completely cover up the red lense underneath? He's redoing them now, but I have a feeling one of the AR coats was overlooked at the factory when they were being applied....

Here's a pic of the Propstore's auctioned glasses, you can make out the mirror coating on the inside. My guess is the mirror on the inside relflects the inside lense color to the front, but the AR coats must be needed to produce the right effect.

Anyone? lol

Rusty85 said:

Now the weird part. I went to have another pair made by the same optometrist, using the SAME formula. But this time, instead of being the red pictured above, they came out really maroon looking. The only way you could tell they were red is if you looked through them. It makes no sense that they didn't come out the same when I used the same method to make them.

The only thing I can think of is that the order of the AR Coating going over the solid mirror, or under it might have affected it that much. But my optometrist seems to think that wouldn't have mattered. We argued a little while about it when I brought them back today. I printed the pictures above and brought them to him so he could see the desired effect. He said what I need is died red lenses with a silver flash mirror on the front of the lenses, as opposed to the inside. The thing I was thinking though, is wouldn't a silver flash mirror on the front of the lenses completely cover up the red lense underneath? He's redoing them now, but I have a feeling one of the AR coats was overlooked at the factory when they were being applied....

Here's a pic of the Propstore's auctioned glasses, you can make out the mirror coating on the inside. My guess is the mirror on the inside relflects the inside lense color to the front, but the AR coats must be needed to produce the right effect.

Click to expand...

I had to re-read the process a few times to understand what was being said.

But first, the pictures you have, are they shiny like the studio picture of Cyclops? The reason I ask is because I have a pair of Carbon with Black Iridium lens and they are the most reflective lenses I have ever seen. Even when I'm outside on a sunny day, it's very hard to see my eyes is what a few friends have commented on.

I'm thinking that your description of the inside coat on the inside of the lense must be reflecting the red outward. But I've read several articles saying that the actor had problems with the red lenses and I was always under the impression that Oakley custom made the lenses for production. And the way I've seen how other lense option works, is that what you see out is a flat greyish color, but the lense color others see (Ruby, Blue Iridium etc), is not the color that you see.

Hmm, now that I think about it, your theory of the inside being coated to reflect the red outward sounds right to me. But how can you achieve the shiny reflective lense like in the studio photo?

And have you checked out the early generation Juliets and Pennys with the serial numbers on the frame? The red there is dead on in terms of color and reflectiveness, but they usually run $500+.

EDIT: I just went through a folder of Ruby Red Juliets and the lense aren't exactly like the Studio pictures. But I mean the red is closer in color to the the studio pic then the later generation lenses.

And also, did you ever sell a pair on ebay? I have some pics from you showing the lenses and I always thought those were the closest to the movie versions.

I've made glasses for 15 years, so I hope I can help. As far as the color, if you are using a plastic tinted lens, lens tint is like using Rit dye. It's basically a solution in water heated to 205 degrees. If your lenses look maroon, I'm thinking they had red, or a red color like rose (rose is a very dark red, with a little brown) and couldn't get the red deep enough, so they used another color like blue or violet to get the red tint to look darker.

Tint deteriorates over time because of heat and the solids suspended in it get absorbed. If they used a fresh batch of tint on your first pair, they may appear a truer red. If the tint was old, they may have tried to darken it up with another color leaving them look maroon. There is no exact method to tinting, you basically leave the lenses soaking in a tint bath for so many minutes until it looks like the color you want. If 2 different people do the tint, each one may tint each pair a little differently.

As far as the mirror on the inside, it makes sense. You would see the mirror through the red tinted lens. The reason you see the yellow glare off of the other lenses is because of all the colors they have to use to build up to red when applieing a red mirror surface to the front side of a lens.

As far as the AR coating, it has the opposite effect as a mirror coating. AR coating is ment to allow more light to pass through a lens, reducing the amount of light that reflects off it's surface. AR coating added to a sunglass really is only effective on the back side. It helps to eliminate the glare from seeing your own eye reflected in the back surface of a tinted lens.

My guess is that the tint they used was old, they couldn't get it as dark, so they used another color to darken it up before they added the mirror coating, which made them look maroon instead of a true red.

Well, thanks for everyone's input.

Here's the quote where I found out the coatings to use on the lenses. I'm thinking that the actual lens color might have had a lot to do with it. The new lenses I bought (should have taken pictures) looked a lot more brown/maroon than actual red, which could have been what you're referring to Hans. They had the mirror coating, but it just looked drastically different. I'm almost wondering if how dark they tinted it red would have an effect on how bright it would appear from the outside... One of those things that's impossible to tell I guess.

Hey Hans, are there any places that do samples? I tried a few here, but none would do it unless for an enormously high price.

"What about the ruby quartz lens? Three coatings cover a dyed blood red plutonite lens, including a pure chrome back layer and anti-reflection material on both sides for extra ruby punch."