The rig above the bench mirrors the lens: it settles, tightens, ripples or fractures while the tint eases across.
An independent optical store on Calder Street. A 30-minute eye test, 1,180 frames you can actually try, and lenses cut and coated in our own workshop.
Pick a colour and a material and the frame is rebuilt in front of you — the same geometry we use at the bench, the same tones we stock on the wall.
Every frame price below is frame only. Lenses start at $95 a pair and are quoted in the next section, so you always see the two halves of the bill separately.
Hand-polished Italian acetate in twelve tones, 48–54 mm. The shape most prescriptions are happiest in.
Nineteen grams on the nose, screwless hinges, drilled to your lens shape in the workshop.
Spring hinges, satin finish, a frame that survives a coat pocket. Adjusted free for as long as you own it.
Bendable temples, silicone pads, a second pair at half price because one pair never survives a term.
Eight-base curve, rubber temple tips, prescription-ready inserts for cycling and hill days.
We measure it, check the hinges and cut new lenses to it — as long as the frame is sound enough to take them.
Adjustments are free, always. Bend, tighten, new nose pads, new screws — whether you bought the frame here or somewhere else. Walk in, it takes about ten minutes.
Pull the stack apart, switch the coatings on and off, and watch the price move. Nothing is bundled and nothing is hidden — the quote you build here is the quote we write at the counter.
Prices are per pair and assume a standard prescription up to ±6.00 D. Stronger scripts move to thinner material; we quote that before we cut.
1.60 thin stock as standard, cut and edged in the workshop. Ready in 48 hours on most prescriptions.
Corridor chosen from your own measurements, not an average. Thirty days to get used to them, or we remake them.
Up to 35 % thinner at the edge, so a −7.00 sits inside the rim instead of standing proud of it.
Two opticians, one room, no queue behind the chair. You leave with a printed prescription that is yours to take anywhere — including somewhere that is not us.
Bring your current glasses and, if you have one, a prescription from the last two years. No referral needed.
Screens, driving, headaches, what your last pair got wrong. Five minutes of talking saves twenty of guessing.
Autorefractor, then the trial frame by hand. The machine gets close; the hand gets it right.
Pressure, front of the eye, and retinal photographs kept on file so next year has something to compare against.
Pupillary distance, frame height, how the frame sits when you look down at a phone. Then the quote, in writing.
Full refraction, pressure check and a printed prescription.
Everything in the standard test plus wide-field photographs and a written report.
Curvature, tear film, trial pair and a teaching session. Refunded against a six-month supply.
Picture charts, shorter chair time, a parent in the room the whole way through.
We read your current lenses on the focimeter and tell you what is in them.
Acetate frame at $265, single-vision 1.60 lenses at $95, anti-reflective coating at $45 and the $45 eye test comes to $450 — and the test is refunded if you buy glasses on the day, so $405 is what you pay.
Eye tests run Monday to Saturday. The last appointment of the day starts an hour before we close, because the fitting is half of the work.
LUMEN OPTICS opened in a narrow shop between a locksmith and a bakery, with one test room, one glazing machine and a wall of forty frames. The machine is still here. The wall now holds 1,180 frames, and the glazing bench in the back room means most single-vision jobs never leave the building.
We are independent, which mostly means nobody sends us a sales target for a particular brand. If the $145 acetate suits your face better than the $480 titanium, we will say so and sell you the $145 one.
Everything on this page — the bench in the hero, the frame you can turn, the lens you can pull apart — is drawn live in your browser. No photographs, no stock images.
— The LUMEN bench, six opticians and one very old focimeter
Reviews are invented for this demo, as is everything else on the page.
“Third optician in two years and the first one to ask what I actually do all day. Turned out my old pair was corrected for a screen forty centimetres closer than mine. New lenses, headaches gone in a week.”
“I brought in a frame I had worn for nine years and expected to be talked out of it. They cleaned it, replaced two screws and cut new lenses for it. Twenty-five dollars of fitting and I kept my glasses.”
“My daughter is eight and hates having anything near her face. They let her play with three frames before anyone measured anything. She has worn them every day since, which I did not expect.”
Ground floor, grey shopfront on the corner of Pike Lane. Step-free entrance; the test room is on the same level as the door.
| Day | Hours |
|---|---|
| Monday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Tuesday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Wednesday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Thursday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Friday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
| Sunday | Closed |
Pick a day and we will confirm the hour by email. This is a demo form on a concept site — nothing is sent, stored or seen by anyone.
We will confirm the hour by email.
Single-vision lenses in a standard prescription are cut in our own workshop, usually within 48 hours. Progressives, high-index and rimless drilling go out to the lab and take five working days. We tell you which one you are in before you pay, not after.
Yes, if it is under two years old and includes your pupillary distance. If the distance is missing we measure it here for free — it takes a minute and it is the number that decides whether the lens sits where your eye is actually looking.
You have thirty days. Most people settle in a fortnight; if you do not, we remake the lenses in a different corridor at no charge, and if the second pair still fights you we put single-vision lenses in the same frame and refund the difference.
No. You pay for the test, you leave with a printed prescription, and it is valid anywhere. If you do buy glasses from us on the same day the test fee comes off the bill, which is why the worked example above lands at $405 instead of $450.