Loupes: 2.5x or 3.5x?

dentwannabe said:

I know loupe brands has been discussed to death. But what about magnification? For a 1st year getting loupes for the first time what do you recommend? I hear 2.5x but I figure if I'm going to go up to 3.5x eventually anyway then why get 2.5x in the first place? Do you think the companies just recommend that so you can "upgrade" later (paying more money)?

Any help would be appreciated.

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I feel the same way. I went with 3.5 and I am happy with them. If you actually compare the feild of view between 2.5 and 3.5 its not that big of a difference. People make using loupes out to be harder then it is, I have no problem bringing my instruments into the feild of view, ect. Try a bunch on don't you have 4 or 5 reps coming in to your school?

I was told 2.5x is the way to go. I doubt you need more. I have 2.5x and they are great.

I went for the 3.0x. I figured I would split it down the middle.
-C

3.5x exapanded field prisms and loving it. If you think you might want to upgrade, I'd say just get the 3.5x in the first place. It'll be too much of a hassle to be sending loupes all over the country when you've got practicals and projects to worry about.

I have 3.5 from medlite with the wide field of view, and they have a better field of view than my classmates 2.5.

i have the 2.5 from designs for vision and the 3.5EF (Extra Field) from DFV also. i love the 3.5's and won't go back to the 2.5's now. the field of vision with the EF's is just as large as with the 2.5's, so you don't sacrifice your field of vision to get the extra magnification. the only drawback to them might be their extra weight - but they aren't so much heavier that they are uncomfortable, IMO.

The medlite prisma 3.5 has plenty for a field of view. They are heavy compared with some of the name brands, but I don't know of anyone who has the comparable EF from design for vision, so I can't really compare.

1. Does anyone recommend Carl Zeiss loupes?

2. Is anyone currently using these, and if so, which ones do you have?

3. Thanks

Columbia07 said:

1. Does anyone recommend Carl Zeiss loupes?

2. Is anyone currently using these, and if so, which ones do you have?

3. Thanks

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I got orascopic, but I know that zeiss is the gold standard of magnification. They were a little too expensive for me.

Columbia07 said:

1. Does anyone recommend Carl Zeiss loupes?

2. Is anyone currently using these, and if so, which ones do you have?

3. Thanks

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I would have gone with Zeiss or Heine if we had a choice, but our money was spent for us before we even started.

I have zeiss 4.3, surgitel 2.5, and I just got the orascoptic 3.0. The zeiss's are beautiful occasionally but hurt my neck with the weight all day. My 2.5 wasn't enough mag after practicing for 3 years. 3.0 works well for me and I use my 4.3 for the occassional molar endo. I'd say go with 3.0 that offers the lightest/most comfortable frame.

I have 2.5x from Orascoptic and they work fine. I'm pretty pleased with them.

I just bought a pair of loupes from Optivision, they are 3.0x flip up. I haven't received them yet. They ran about $400.

Has anyone had experience with this brand? I made my decision based on price and weight. They have a 30 day trial period so I will be able to see the quality of the optics. They were not significantly heavier than DFV or Orascoptic which both ran about 2 oz. These are about 2.2 oz.

I gotta say, the medlite loupes are freakin awesome! The administration at my school only knows about the manufacturers with representatives that come out. So we only got exposed to the expensive brands which ran like 750 to 1400 bucks.

I'm a cheap b@$**** so I went shopping and found Medlite. Got a pair of 4.5's and they haven't given me one problem since. I also got a pair of 2.5's so I figure I am covered for anything. In all I spent about..600 for both pairs. They are both flip ups, but that just means the eyepiece is not as close to your eye, but I'm young so I'll be ok for now. I'll get a fancy pair when I start getting paid.

Just got my Optivision loupes, and I'm a little dissapointed. They are identical to Medlite loupes but $140 more expensive

Other than being out $140 they seem pretty good. Not too heavy compared to other flip up lenses, a fraction of the cost, and a HUGE field of view. The depth of field isn't anything to write home about - Aproximately 3 inches. But I think it is sufficient. Also there is a small amount of lense abberation but I dont think this will inhibit performance at all.

btw... DFV sucks

billyjones said:

Just got my Optivision loupes, and I'm a little dissapointed. They are identical to Medlite loupes but $140 more expensive

Other than being out $140 they seem pretty good. Not too heavy compared to other flip up lenses, a fraction of the cost, and a HUGE field of view. The depth of field isn't anything to write home about - Aproximately 3 inches. But I think it is sufficient. Also there is a small amount of lense abberation but I dont think this will inhibit performance at all.

btw... DFV sucks

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Why do you say DFV sucks? I'm waiting on a pair to be delivered, is there something I should look for when I get them?

2.5x

Someone in our class has the 3.0 Surgitel's and I tried them out and they were awesome! I got the 2.5's and am somewhat dissappointed. I thought they were great till I tried out his. The magnification was unbelievable and surgitel offers caps to switch out, so that you can change your depth of field to whatever you want (eg. 12 in to 20 in). I will definitely be getting these in the next few years...as soon as I can talk someone into buying my 2.0's. Oh, and surgitel has some coating on their lens to make the objects look much brighter! I was very impressed with their lens quality. You should definitely give them a try. IMO

it depends on the person. i like my orascoptic flip up lens - rudy project, not the typical flip up lense, the whole thing flips up. I have some pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=loupes&w=63238868%40N00

I like them, but I think I would have bumped up to the slightly larger magnification. I love tons of light and tons of magnification. In fact when I make my first $99,000 (real cost of the lense) I am going to spend some of it on a canon lense like this:

http://k43.pbase.com/o5/33/205833/1/67748045.hxh0zJHS.Canon12005.jpg
girl not included.

Ebull said:

Why do you say DFV sucks? I'm waiting on a pair to be delivered, is there something I should look for when I get them?

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The day I posted that I had just spent about an hour putting on, and taking off loupes from Surgitel, Orascoptic, Designs for Vision, and Heine. Although I don't consider myself an expert on optics, there were some obvious differences between the different brands.

I especially didn't like DFV because the loupes had a lot of chromatic aberration when compared to the other loupes. Heine I thought had the least, and Sergitel's flip up's also seemed very good. If you take a white piece of paper with small black print, and look at it through the lenses you can really see the aberration. Another mistake I had made when looking at loupes was looking at my thumbs or the table or something like that to get a feel for them. When I looked at a paper with clear dark and light areas, and sharp lines I could see a lot more.

The other reason I was disappointed with them is because they had a very small depth of field, just eye-balling it in the Schein store, they didn't even have 4" of optic clarity. Compare that to the Heine, and there was a noticable difference. Heine must have had 9-10" of depth of field.

The problem with our school is that whenever we see loupes its always 1 sales rep at a time. We never get to compare the loupes from different manufactures side-by-side. Anyway, when we finally did, there was a lot we didnt realize.

1992Corolla said:

it depends on the person. i like my orascoptic flip up lens - rudy project, not the typical flip up lense, the whole thing flips up. I have some pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=loupes&w=63238868%40N00

I like them, but I think I would have bumped up to the slightly larger magnification. I love tons of light and tons of magnification. In fact when I make my first $99,000 (real cost of the lense) I am going to spend some of it on a canon lense like this:

http://k43.pbase.com/o5/33/205833/1/67748045.hxh0zJHS.Canon12005.jpg
girl not included.

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Which part flips up on the canon lense?

If you were my dentist, I would want to you have as high mag as you can stand. A buddy of mine uses 4.5x, but only when checking critical areas (margins, etc).

There are so many loupes and so many choices. Try out which ever company comes to your liking and combine it with your own research. It all comes down to, what do you want to see?? and the general rule of thumb is that you can't really treat what you can't see. 2.5 mag in my opinion is ok for start, but if you get a taste of what you could potentially treat, stepping up the ladder is always a good move. A SOM is not a ridiculous idea at all!

I went with Surgitel 3.0 and like them.

billyjones said:

I just bought a pair of loupes from Optivision, they are 3.0x flip up. I haven't received them yet. They ran about $400.

Has anyone had experience with this brand? I made my decision based on price and weight. They have a 30 day trial period so I will be able to see the quality of the optics. They were not significantly heavier than DFV or Orascoptic which both ran about 2 oz. These are about 2.2 oz.

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i got pair of 3.5x wide view flip ups and they are only 2.9oz. i'll weight them myself when they arrive.

I don't really think weight is an issue.

I went with the Designs for Vision 3.5 expanded field and would buy them again in a second. They are definitely sturdy and the optics are amazing.

+1 for DFV 3.5XEF!

I guess if I were to do it again, I would have went with a 3.5 magnification lens instead of 2.5. The 2.5 is nice and I can see the whole mouth, it's just that when I'm checking margins, flash, polish, etc..I only need to look at one tooth- not the whole mouth. I'm very happy with the Q optics that I have, just kinda wish I had a little bigger zoom.

jay47 said:

I guess if I were to do it again, I would have went with a 3.5 magnification lens instead of 2.5. The 2.5 is nice and I can see the whole mouth, it's just that when I'm checking margins, flash, polish, etc..I only need to look at one tooth- not the whole mouth. I'm very happy with the Q optics that I have, just kinda wish I had a little bigger zoom.

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My 3.5 XEF Gives me the entire arch. Others who have 3.3 are a lot more restricted without the expanded field

Hey what DFV frame do you have? I hear a lot of talk about this "Buddy Holly" frame, do you know anything about it.

hearseman82 said:

Hey what DFV frame do you have? I hear a lot of talk about this "Buddy Holly" frame, do you know anything about it.

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Buddy Hollys are both styling and very strong. Helps keep the frame true.

DrReo said:

Buddy Hollys are both styling and very strong. Helps keep the frame true.

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Are they sold anywhere online? Could you provide a link?

Machiavelliansm said:

Are they sold anywhere online? Could you provide a link?

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..you have to get measured for your working distance and pupillary distance or w/e they call it...http://lmgtfy.com/?q=design+for+vision+loupes

email them and they will send a representative to talk to you.

Machiavelliansm said:

Are they sold anywhere online? Could you provide a link?

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I've got the buddy holly DFV x3.5. It was basically a $75 extra fee i forked over cash to get it over the x2.5 they were giving out in first year. our clinics don't allow the chumps loupe holders for infection control, so i'm stuck with the plastic frame holder which kinda pinches behind my ears after wearing it for a while.

With all that, I'm pretty happy with it for now, maybe near the time I graduate I might get a high end loupes just to have.

different brands of loupes rate their magnification differently. having owned many brands over the years, and seen and tried on ones owned by friends and coworkers, I now stick with only Designs for Vision and Orascoptic.

My hygienists both have Sheervision 3.0 loupes. they are complete junk. nowhere near the magnification power of either my old "buddy holly" 2.5 DFV's or my old set of 2.0 power basic Orascoptics (which I gave to a friend).

I use my buddy holly 2.5's or my newer Orascoptic 3.5's for 90% of procedures, with DFV LED lighting. I do EVERYTHING with loupes, it really helps your posture, and the quality of your work.

I have 2 sets of higher mag Orascoptics, the class 3 high's and the class 4 high's (the ones with the long barrels, like DFV's expanded field loupes), that I primarily use for endo.

don't go cheap, you really do get what you pay for. I have a pair of cheap old surgitel flip-ups that I doubt I could get $100 for on ebay, just collecting dust.

Columbia07 said:

1. Does anyone recommend Carl Zeiss loupes?

2. Is anyone currently using these, and if so, which ones do you have?

3. Thanks

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I have a set of Carl Zeiss 3.9X loupes. They are long and heavy flip up loupes but the image is FANTASTIC! I can even use them to do my watch repair course.
I also have Orascoptic 2.5X flip ups and these have served me well.
I think one of the most important accessories is the headlight which I want attached to all loupes I wear.

I think that the mounting point on loupes is set by manufacturers to be in the wrong place as many have the light set at the nose bridge and this creates shadows when looking into root canals.

I bought the surgitel 2.5 flip ups because the rep at our school said it would help with posture. They had a small field of view and I had a hard time getting used to them and many times went with direct vision instead. This ended up hurting my posture. Two and a half years later I now have the DFV 3.5 buddy holly expanded view with the DFV light and couldn't be happier. The added weight is a non-issue if you tighten the strap.