Method Seven Grow Room Glasses in South Africa

Method Seven technology blends incredible colour balancing for each of the standard grow lighting spectrum's (HPS, Metal Halide, LED,CMH, Sun) with exceptionally high quality lenses that provide the best in optical clarity. Additionally, Method Seven protection removes all harmful UV A/B rays like most others but additionally also removes harmful UV C rays which are filtered out of sunlight by the upper atmosphere but are still a significant hazard under grow lighting.

Many growers suffer through unnecessary stress, fatigue, decreased yield, and even permanent eye injury in their grow room experience from using sunglasses or cheaper knock-off grow room glasses. At best, even premium sunglasses attenuate (decrease) excess light in the grow room but do a horrible job of colour balancing in indoor lighting environments, leading not only to discomfort and stress but also to poor viewing and maintenance of your plants. Cheap grow room glasses do an OK to good job of colour balancing, but typically have very poor optical quality and inadequate protection from UVC rays.

Got a few questions? See the topics below for more

FAQ

Q: Do Method Seven Glasses work outdoors

A: Yes! You can wear your Method Seven’s outdoors too! Method Seven Technology blocks and completely protects your eyes from all harmful UVA/UVB/UVC light. Our glasses are appropriate to wear outdoors under any conditions which you choose. The HPS spectrum lenses filter out less visible spectrum light than most medium and dark sun-glass lenses which means they are a great choice for lower light conditions, like mountain biking in the trees or skateboarding in the early morning, but they may not be your first choice for snowboarding on a sunny day when conditions are super bright. In very bright outdoor conditions the MH Silver Plus+ lens is a fantastic outdoor lens. Made from unbreakable polycarbonate; it’s a great choice for action sports. (LED glasses are not recommended for outdoors).

Q: Why bother with grow glasses

A: While HPS, Metal Halide, and LED lighting can provide effective lighting solutions and deliver plants the light energy needed for prolific vegetative growth, they also create a hostile working environment for the human eye. Humans see best under the balanced spectrum and light levels of natural daylight conditions. Grow room lighting produces extreme conditions of excess light, very unbalanced light from unique spectrum of each artificial grow light source (HPS, LED, MH), and dangerous UV radiation from UVA/UVB/UVC. Sunglasses help attenuate (reduce) the excess light, but do nothing to help colour balance the stressful and eye fatiguing spectrum's of indoor garden lighting. Cheap grow glasses offer some improvement here, but usually at a much lower optical quality than good sunglasses. Both might not protect from UVC radiation which is not a significant concern in natural sunlight due to absorption by the earth’s atmosphere but which is a concern in the modern grow room. Only Method Seven provides definitive colour balancing with options for all common indoor lighting sources, exceptional clarity, and 100% UVA/UVB/UVC protection. Don’t risk using sunglasses or cheap grow room glasses!

Q: Why are Method Seven’s so superior to other grow glasses?

A: Grow room lighting produces extreme conditions. The hazards include excess light, very unbalanced light from the unique spectrum of each artificial grow light source (HPS, LED, MH), and dangerous UV radiation from UVA/UVB/UVC. Ballasts used by HPS and MH grow lights also creates a high frequency strobe effect in the light from these bulbs. This is not immediately obvious to the conscious mind, but is very stressful to your eyes and impedes ability to easily focus on shapes and detect movement. Working in these environments without appropriate eye-wear results in eye and general fatigue, inability to correctly monitor plants, and even permanent injury to your eyes. Method Seven Optics are designed and engineered specifically and carefully for these conditions. All Method Seven lenses are made from either premium German mineral glass or high quality synthetics manufactured to our custom standards by Italy’s Carl Zeiss – world leaders in optics for over 100 years. All are asymmetrically tuned bringing distortion free focus and clarity to your eyes. Rendition glass lenses virtually eliminate the strobe effect, and Carl Zeiss synthetic lenses reduce this to physiologically low levels. Other grow glasses attempt to colour balance the extreme light spectrum of the grow room with varying degrees of success, though even those with decent light balancing typically use cheap plastic lenses with very poor clarity that distort light and are hazy or blurry. With cheap grow room glasses, your eyes and brain work overtime to compensate and you can experience fatigue, see spots, get headaches and in some cases experience damaging UV radiation. Your eyes and health are very important. So is getting the most out of your grow. Don’t risk using sunglasses or cheap grow room glasses!

Q: Where are Method Seven glasses manufactured?

A: The Rendition Perfect Colour HPS mineral glass lens is made with a patent pending formulation, melted in six ton batches in a century old German factory, and ground, polished, cut and hardened in Italy. Our synthetic lenses are made by Carl Zeiss – world leaders in optics for over 100 years. They are asymmetrically tuned bringing distortion free focus and clarity to your eyes. Our frames are made in Italy. Final assembly of glasses into frames is also done in Italy. Packaging of glasses, carry case, wiping cloth, and boxes is done in Italy or in Santa Cruz, California.

Q: What’s the story with Rendition Perfect Colour HPS lenses?

A: See. Believe. Our patent pending Rendition Perfect Colour HPS lens technology performs miracles for you. Colour Balancing We developed a proprietary blend of rare-earth elements that are bonded within molten glass at the molecular level. The result is canceling of a precise nano-meter of light energy from the High Pressure Sodium spectrum. The lenses also selectively filter the remaining light spectrum to create the white balanced light your eyes need for maximum performance and comfort. The specific density of the glass lens also absorbs a substantial amount of infrared radiation resulting in additional comfort. Rendition Perfect Colour HPS lenses provide the ultimate in colour balancing, optical clarity, and protection to allow you the ultimate in comfort, visual acuity, and productivity while working with your grow. Up your game as you as monitor plant health and correctly perceive the colour of your plant leaves and the things that threaten your grow – pests, disease, rot, mildews, and mineral deficiencies and excesses – that are often hidden by the harsh lighting environment. The Rendition lens reveals colour precisely enough to use a PH test strip while in the grow room. All without turning your HPS lighting off or walking your plants, or your testing equipment into daylight. (If you are the kind of person who wants to know the details, you can read about the amazing science behind in links further down this page). Optical Clarity Rendition Perfect Colour HPS lenses are made from mineral glass which is melted in six ton batches in a century old German factory, and ground, polished, cut and hardened in Italy. They provide the ultimate in distortion free focus and clarity to your eyes. Protection Like all Method Seven optics, Rendition lenses provide 100% protection against not only UVA and UVB radiation, but also from UVC radiation lacking in normal daylight but prevalent under grow-room lighting. Rendition lenses are also the only grow lenses in the world that eliminate virtually all of the high frequency strobe effect inherent under HPS grow lights due to the way ballast and HPS bulb product light (the strobe effect is not immediately obvious to the conscious mind, but is very stressful to your eyes and impedes ability to easily focus on shapes and detect movement, and is a huge contributor to eye fatigue when working for prolonged periods in and HPS lighted grow room). Experience “Rendition Perfect Colour” under HPS lighting – and work unconstrained in spite of that environment.

Q: Why does Method Seven offer so many options?

A: Gardeners employ a variety of lighting types and combinations of lights to work their craft! Each type of light produces its own unique spectrum that is very different from the light levels and balanced spectrum of daytime sunlight which works best for our eyes. We make optical solutions for each of the most common of these lighting spectrum's. Our glasses allow you to regain the comfort and high quality visual results you would experience in an outdoor garden environment. We also offer a full assortment of Rx glasses and clip-on's for people who need prescriptions. Colour, Clarity, Protection All Method Seven glasses provide outstanding Clarity, and 100% UVA/UVB/UVC protection. 

Optics & Spectrum Info

Lighting Spectrum's

Natural sunlight and white balanced light Sunlight is composed of the full, balanced distribution of light across the spectrum of visible wavelengths from 390 to 750 nm – a magical distribution of reds, yellows, greens and blues – all the colours of the rainbow. Sunlight’s even distribution of all wavelengths of light across the full spectrum produces naturally “balanced white light” (BWL). Our eyes and brain need this colour balanced light to function optimally without stress, discomfort, fatigue and sometimes permanent damage. This broad spectrum of light allows us to see natural looking colours and to also easily recognize shapes and motion. The sunlight spectrum also includes invisible and dangerous UV (ultra violet) and invisible and fatiguing IR (infra red) wavelengths. Grow Room lights Each grow-room light source (HPS, MH, LED) provides a VERY imbalanced spectrum of light, with a vast majority of the light occurring in just a few wavelengths of the spectrum typical of the chemistry and physics of that light source. Plants still grow well under these imbalanced light sources and aren’t negatively affected, but human eyes and brains are. Colour, Clarity, Protection. Only Method Seven delivers all three. The greater productivity, comfort, and safety, the grower needs grow glasses that filter the harsh, unbalanced light of the grow room to create BWL (balanced white light). Each lighting spectrum (HPS, LED, MH) needs its own exacting solution. Method Seven Optics have formulations to filter out the specific wavelength spikes in the spectrum of each of these common grow lightings sources, providing the wearer white balanced light within the very unbalanced environment.The lenses must do this without reducing the optical clarity of the naked eye, or the reduced optical clarity from the lenses create a different set of physiological issues for the wearer. For short term comfort and long term health, lenses must protect the eye from 100% of the harmful UVA/UVB/UVC radiation of the grow room and reduce IR exposure to the eye. HPS lights HPS lighting creates and radiates a huge amount of light. The frequent electrical excitation and decay of electrons in the sodium atoms generates the vast majority of total light output at a specific “yellow” wavelength around 590 nanometers. This wavelength is a very suitable energy source for plants to use for photosynthesis and growth, and light and ballast costs have traditionally been low. HPS lights use considerable electricity and produce considerable excess heat. The yellow spike of HPS lights is especially challenging to our eyes due to the poor spectrum, the exceeding poor yellow / blue ratio of the light that impacts the functioning of the rods and cones in our eyes, and the high frequency “strobe effect” from the ballasts (more details elsewhere on this page). LED lights Unlike most HPS lamps, the light spectrum produced by commercially available LED equipment varies between manufacturers and is dependent on the combinations of diode, amperage, magnification and a host of design considerations. The best LED spectrum's for optimum plant growth typically produce a distinctive magenta colour appearance. MH lights MH bulbs produce light that’s strongest at the blue end of the spectrum resulting in a stark, bright white light. MH bulbs tend to be very bright, and glasses need to appropriately attenuate (decrease) total light to the eye in addition to providing colour balanced light and 100% UVA/UVB/UVC protection. Our eyes evolved to function best under daytime sunlight with its full, balanced distribution of light across the full spectrum of red, yellow, green and blue wavelengths from 390 to 750 nm. Our eyes and brain need this colour balanced light to function optimally without stress, discomfort, fatigue and sometimes permanent damage. This broad spectrum of light allows us to see natural looking colours and to also easily recognize shapes and motion. “Balanced White Light” When reproducing the full sunlight spectrum artificially, the spectrum is called “balanced white light” (BWL). Each type of grow light (HPS, LED, MH) produces a spectrum very far from white balanced light. Photographers learned long ago that the colour of light on an object changed the way a camera/film registers the colour of the object, just as the colour of light on an object changes the way our eyes perceive the colour of that object . With the advent of modern light metering and photo processing software, photos can be white balanced after the fact. Photographers have created a process where they photograph a specific colour of white paper at the same time they take a photograph, and later adjust the finished photographs (using photo software like Photoshop) until that white paper looks the correct shade of white again. This allows the other objects photographed to appear the correct colour too. When looking at something under a spectrum other than balanced white light, your eyes work hard and partially colour correct what they see. The more unbalanced the spectrum, the harder your eyes work and the less they can successfully compensate. Look at a sheet of white paper under grow lights, and you will notice that it doesn’t look even close to white, instead you see the unbalanced colour spikes of the grow room light source. Your eyes can’t come close to compensating for the extreme lighting environment of indoor grow lights. Look at that same piece of paper with Method Seven glasses, and see the exact shade of white you see outdoors under natural sunlight! For more technical information about colour balancing, eye physiology and specific Method Seven products, see the “Colour Perception & M7 Colour Balancing” section lower on this page. Colour, Clarity, Protection Light balancing is only one of the challenges for optical products for the indoor grower. Only Method Seven delivers products for different light source spectrum's with state of the art colour balancing, optical clarity, and 100% UVA/UVB/UVC protection.

Optical Clarity

Eye Protection & safety standards

Protect your eyes! Find yourself constantly squinting in the grow room? Over time constant exposure to high levels of UV and infrared radiation leads to irreparable eye damage. Loss of colour perception, cataracts, and the destruction of your night vision are possible. All of our lenses blocks all harmful invisible wavelengths (UVA, UVB, UVC and Infrared). Your plants require these invisible wavelengths to flourish. Your eyes certainly don’t. But that’s not the whole story. Cones and rods within your eyes control the eyes ability to focus and function best at light wavelengths very different from the indoor grow environment. New science proves that the eyes extra effort to focus and correct for excess yellow from HPS lights causes a host of eye strain and health problems. Rendition lenses balance the light in a way that allows your eyes, brain, and body to function correctly again. This results in drastically less mental strain and fatigue. Less fatigue equals better decision-making and a pleasant experience in your grow room. Safety Standards Method Seven glasses meet or exceed international safety tests for optical quality, clarity, breakage and UV protection.

Treat yourself and your grow to Method Seven quality and style! Premium grow room optics that provide balanced colour and light in harsh lighting environments for maximum attention to detail.

Method Seven Grow Room Glasses are available at Grow Guru and all leading grow shops nationwide in South Africa.