Which lenses’ shape is right for you: cylindrical lenses.

Snow goggles come in all shapes and sizes, but lenses only ever come in three shapes.
Cylindrical, spherical or toric: what are the differences between these lenses’ shapes and what is the best one for you?

A cylindrical lens is literally shaped on a cylinder, so it is curved horizontally, but it is flat vertically.

Field of view:
Cylindrical lenses wrap around your face in one direction and that is why you can achieve incredible levels of horizontal field of view with them. Yet, the shape of the lens is only one of the many components that influence the field of view, like the pantoscopic angle or, obviously, the frame construction.

Ventilation:
Due to their shape, cylindrical lenses leave plenty of space for ventilation around the nose, and at the top of the forehead due to the distance between the lens and your face so they are usually well ventilated.

Optical clarity:
High quality lenses are “optically corrected”, that means that the lens’ thickness is calibrated to eliminate or avoid distortions.
But it must be said that lenses work well when the light passes through them perpendicularly, so in cylindrical lenses, even corrected ones, looking through the very top and the bottom there is a slight, almost invisible, mismatch between where you see an object and where the object is.
Like I said it is something extremely hard to perceive, but that you can take into consideration.

The shape of the lens is an important component to consider when getting new goggles, but it is only a component.
It’s always important, when choosing, to try them on to see if, apart from the lens shape, you like what you see.