Well, I think you should ask yourself some questions. First of all, though, to deal with part of your query (about the lens). Anything between the light source and its destination will be absorptive. That is, it will decrease the intensity of the light supplied to your plants. However, you need to consider, among other possibilities, whether it will direct or concentrate the light more towards the plants than without it. Also, will this lens offer any protection to the guts of the device. If you are working with your plants, is there a chance that you could bump the inside of the lamp and damage it or destroy it. Secondly, what is the intensity and spectrum of this light? I see that you have only three of them mounted on your old fixture. That's a good idea but are you getting the same amount of light as you got with the fluorescent tubes. As a very rough calculation, a two-tube fluorescent fixture will run at about 5400 lumens output. This is not going to be directed towards your plants very well, so they will get less than that. How many lumens do your three LED devices put out? That light will be more directed to the plants so they might be more efficient in that respect but how even is the distribution. You could think about these things and possibly answer your own question. I wonder though - what is the brand and model or catalog number of these lamps? Are they sold explicitly as grow lights or did you just pick up some LED spots? Your photos show a highly magenta tone, indicating that the spectrum is largely red. That may be good but it is unclear from what you have provided. Does the manufacturer provide a spectrum chart? How much did they cost? Where?

I'm an optician and I sell a lot of Varilux lenses. The Varilux Physio 360 is being phased out for the newer Physio Enchanced. Both are types of progressives and both come in many different lens materials. They are both excellent progressives but there are very good progressives for less money if it's a concern. I do suggest high index lenses for you and you shouldn't have problems with these lenses as they come in high index materials. The thinnest lens you could get would be the 1.74 high index but depending on the frame and your pupil distance a 1.67 high index would be cheaper and could be only a little thicker. Do get the Crizal Avance anti refective coating, it's really outstanding and worth paying extra for. I'm glad to answer any questions.

Got up at 5:30, darn race didn't start until 8, they said 7 on one of the news websites. Had to get there early enough so I didn't have to park too far away, people everywhere all over town. Hot already but not as bad as I thought. Here I am telling you what to do and my photos did not turn out too great. I shot sports mode, buildings & background were bright but runners too dark, many blurry or out of focus, many good and fixable. I am going to have to process each one that's worth keeping (shot 594) and brighten most of them up with shadow highlights. Good learning experience. I shot most in sports mode which kicks into burst, but I'm not happy with a lot of today's because I can't change any of the parameters in that, picks too large apertures and too slow shutter speeds and continuous auto focus I'm not used to at all. It is hard shooting a sea of people, never been in a situation quite like that before. I'm thinking about what to do next time, couldn't figure out how set burst so I could use tv mode standing out there with all those people, should have shot tv mode, 1/800, ISO 800, partial metering. Maybe. I'll have to get some help with that. Coming home, I was trapped in by lots of street closings, had to go way out of my way to find a way out of that maze, lucky I know my streets around here, only one way out from where I got myself. Filled two 1 gig flash cards in about 1/2 hour! Good timing though, a few stragglers were coming up the hill when both cards were full. I'll wait for your photos. Yours will be easy. I know people steal photos. I haven't caught anybody doing that to me yet, maybe mine aren't that good? Somebody in France liked my peacock java applet and wrote and asked, I said ok. What do I care? I just don't want people making money off my work. Will address some of the other issues later. Too bad you have to break up your lily garden, that would be very hard for me to do. You must be either a specialist or have special lilies and maybe getting older like I am? Granny out shooting a race. Hah! I wonder which lens would be best for that? Used 50mm with a different race, much smaller, this time went with the 28-135 so I could zoom. 70-200 not wide enough even if I had it which I don't. That is a conundrum for sure since I was so close to most of them standing on the sidewalk, brushed by a few, tried not to get in their way. Then some other photog gets in my way. There now you taught me something about bracketing. I've been doing it the hard way. Shoot, look at histogram, set exposure comp or some other adjustment. I'm going to try bracketing and quit on the bright end like you do. So thanks for that tip! I dared not shoot that race in AV (my favorite) because with the early morning bright light and shadows, it would have picked too slow a shutter speed. Frustrating. THIS is where I would like to have been positioned lol. She hadn't turned her camera toward the race yet, she had to swing it about 45 degrees to her right to be pointing at the runners coming up the long hill. I fixed this one a little. Later, Alice

If I had to choose between a Polarizing filter (CP for circular polarizer) and a Neutral Density filter (ND), I'd definitely go with the CP first. But usually, or at least often, you buy filters in sets that include CP, ND and UV. I use the UV more as a protection for my lens than anything else. The CP comes in handy for popping color in water and sky and taking reflections off water and glass. The ND filter I have has not shown itself (yet) to be terribly useful for every day use. But ... check out this video I found the other day on extreme ND filter use. How to make traffic disappear. Very cool. Jodi- Here is a link that might be useful: Removing moving objects in bright sunlight