This is going to surprise a few of you. Left with and right without:
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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Wait, the lens flare effect is because of my astigmatism?
Yep! I found out on reddit, lol.
It's because old movie cameras had astigmatism.
Well, some old movie cameras. That movie-makers decided to be passionate about.
That's just the way things look. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You can't convince me there's people without the amazing starburst effect, just like you can't convince me there's people completely devoid of internal monologue.
there's an infinity of human experience, and I can't put myself in everybody's shoes, but I can at least pretend
Okay, pretend to have astigmatism for so long, it's just the way the world is to you. Then make about a ⅛ to ¼ -assed effort of making a joke comment saying that you can't believe other people don't get so easily blinded by things.
don't worry, i also have astigmatism that also doesn't go away with my glasses, and i guess mine is just very mild because i find it very pretty if a little inconvenient. but also the biggest thing i drive is a bicycle, and i usually take the tram or bus so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
also yes i sort of accidentally intentionally missed the point. I'm sorry, I do that a lot.
Mine doesn’t look exactly like the image on the left. It’s more of an X pattern.
And that’s WITH glasses or contacts.
Mine are more like crosses which leads me to ask, why are they different?
I’m not an eye doctor - just a guy with astigmatism in both eyes… But my understanding is that astigmatism can happen in multiple ways because it is due to the eye being non-spherical, etc.
Meanwhile, there are limits to what glasses or contacts can do to correct this. Only so many ways a lens can bend light at one time.
I think that’s what leads to people seeing different things, even with glasses on, when it comes to visual distortions like starburst patterns around lights.
Ooooh look at Mr. Fancy pants over there with his special astigmatism. Meanwhile we're all stuck with the regular astigmatism.
Joking aside, that's pretty interesting.
I just found out this is a thing that can be fixed, lol. I thought it's just annoying part of life.
With glasses the lights just hurt with darker glasses hard to see, without one see the one on left. All hard choices.
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Of course it was an Audi. They probably have entire departments dedicated to working out how to make their cars even more obnoxious than they already are.
European here, the fuck are y’all talking ’bout. I have astigmatism and LED headlights are godsend, especially low beam. They have automatic leveling which prevents blinding if you put something in the trunk, the beam is wider and more controlled than from a lightbulb and the cutoff is razor sharp. Don’t get me started on automatic high beams with zones, like magic.
I just wonder if your experience is not swayed by illegal LED retrofits.
All of that stuff that helps people from getting blinded is actually illegal here in the states. Those high beams with zones? Illegal I would love for that stuff to come here but currently we just get fucked in the eyeballs seemingly for fun
The problem in the States is all of the brodozers with their headlights up so high they are shining directly into your eyes. With them being so obnoxious it's all we remember when we think about LEDs.
they are shining directly into your eyes.
That would be illegal in most of Europe and will fail an inspection, resulting in a fine.
Those "trucks" are illegal in Europe, but don't worry Stellantis is trying to fix that with ~~bribes~~ lobbying.
It ain't just the trucks, I've been blinded by early 2000s Honda Civics before. I drive a 01 Toyota Tacoma I sit comfortably above their headlights yet I still get blinded.
That's a completely different problem. Those are bad retrofits. Either the idiot put an LED (with a bad CRI because they like the color) into a reflector made for a halogen bulb, or they did a cheap headlight assembly swap. The bulb swap works like shit because they have completely different radiation patterns. The assembly swap is usually not optimized for the emission pattern either, and they tend to be a bad color as well because there people installing them think they look cool. Most of both of them are illegal to use in the road, but the cops don't care.
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Id rather blame it on beam shape which in your cars are symmetrical and designed to shine straight onto opposing drivers face. Here I immediately see at night that incoming traffic is a car with LEDs because they blind me less - you must come here to believe me I guess, but check what beam shape is by law mandated in the EU. And it is much much easier to control the beam shape exactly like you want it with multi-LED headlights.
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nope, retrofits are not the main problem
the main problem is that LED headlights are typically way too damn bright, and inevitably will end up shining in somebody's face. quite often actually
Automatic leveling? Up until 2022, that was illegal here in the united states. There'd be very few cars with it, despite having the extremely bright headlights.
Illegal?! How about cars with Xenon lights, they were also illegal? It’s mandatory in EU for cars with xenon lights to have automatic leveling, spray nozzles, limited power output and more controlled beam shape than standard bulbs.
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I think the post is about being on the recieving end of them, not being the user.
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LED headlights are godawful astigmatism or no. Whoever invented them should be made to stare directly into the sun for the rest of time.
Only done poorly, which sadly is most cars, even new. They are aimed too fucking high. Headlights are meant to be aimed down at the damn road. Not up high for far reach. That's the point of highbeams.
I got projector leds for my car but i properly aimed them, the light has a sharp hard cutoff juuuuust below the windshield on Most sedans at distance to make sure I don't blind em. If i need more and it's safe I've got my highbeams which turn the road in even the darkest rural to noon.
The car designers specifically dampen their headlight output in the exact spot where regulators measure their light.
But there's also the issue that they have way too much blue light. Blue light still damages eyes even though it's only UV adjacent and not UV.
I don't know about regulations, but you are right about the blue light.
Most white LEDs have low CRI, and that's why things look weird with them.
The reason they use low CRI LEDs is probably because they are cheaper and produce more lumens per watt.
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LED headlights would be fine if they weren't infinitely bright and a shade of blue/cool white. Just make them a bit warmer and not so bright.
Yeah, what I'm saying is that there are rules about how much you are allowed to blind everyone else and car designers are specifically circumventing them.
It would also be nice if they were a more pleasant colour.
The reason why car designers do this is because it sells more cars. People feel safer in a huge SUV / "truck" when though they aren't. People also feel safer when they can light everything up even though they aren't.
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Aiming the LEDs is only a partial solution, as soon as you got a slight incline you're beaming straight into oncomers' eyes
That is true but to be quite honest even the people that don't have LEDs are blinding me when they are at an incline to me. In either situation I'm putting my hand up to try and block it out till they pass
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And here I thought this was going to be about how in the corner of my eye I can see LED headlights flickering and it drives me fucking bonkers
If that's your vision, y'all need glasses.
I have astigmatism. My glasses correct it. Led lights are fine.
Eyeglass prescriptions that correct for astigmatism have one "axis" or direction that can be specified. Real astigmatism can be vastly more complex than a single diopter adjustment in one direction. This makes many real astigmatism cases effectively uncorrectable.
Is it unfixable with lenses or only unfix able without lenses custom designed for your eye?
If that makes sense
To correct any possible astigmatism, it would require an infinite sum of series of correction terms at different angles and strengths.
But every glasses prescription I've ever gotten in the United States cuts that series off at one term. I've never seen nor heard of anyone getting custom lenses with two or more axes. It seems like it should be theoretically possible, but I also know very little about the process of lens grinding.
My understanding is that it’s just a limitation of the physical medium of a glass (or plastic) lens. There’s just only so much it can do - and only so many directions a lens can bend light at the same time before it enters your eye.
I have no complaints, despite the persistent starburst around lights at night. It’s not that big a deal. And I’ve never seen them any other way, after all.
My only other quibble is that my prescription makes everything look a little bit wider than it actually is. Either that, or my astigmatisms (one in each eye, and different from each other too!) make everything look more narrow than it really is? I’ve never really been sure….
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Sorry, but you're wrong. I'm happy for you everything works but for lots of people they can either have clear eyesight or no issues with light sources in the dark.
And damn, those glasses are expensive!
Do they make glasses that just fix astigmatism? I have great vision and don't need glasses for sight. But I do have gnarly astigmatism.
They do. Get ready to feel drunk for a couple days if you get them.
Yes, and contacts too (for mild astigmatism)
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