Carrera Divo / Corona Review

Overall Rating

Anti-Fogging:
Skiing down from the top of the mountain in Zermatt early this January, it was minus 15 'C with some wind. No fogging at all, even when stationary!


Tint:
Yellow verging on grey tint meant that eyes soon got used to them and colouration did not ruin views.

Clear skies, direct sun. No eye strain, even when coming over a brow of a hill on a lift and finding myself facing the sun.

My girlfriend reported similar findings, although when I tried I found that the extreme colouration was more difficult to get used to and I would imagine that distinguishing yellow snow to avoid sitting on it would be more difficult. :-) Not quite so good in heading directly towards the sun but not so much as to be annoying.

Polarising lens:
When it was very occaisionally overcast, neither of us had any difficulty distinguishing bumps and ruts and changes in snow conditions. Indeed, we both used goggles on a late ski down to resort level, in near-dark at about 17:30 (it is a north facing resort).

It was also very easy to distinguish changes in snow conditions from packed snow to ice, no doubt thanks to the polarising lens.

Did not find any weakness in the product.

Check the size suits your face, and that it will cover your balaclava. Porting of air is not present on these models, however, I didn't encounter any problems (although occasional misting on the outside if I breathed too hard into my jacket, that can't be helped by any treatment though :-)

Consistency and availability, the product range appears undefined and the carerra web site doesn't help with limited descriptions (verging on inaccurate, polar vs photochromatic in particular seems doesn't seem to match what I found in the shops).

I had Polarising yellow ultrasight Carrera goggles with black frames, my girlfriend had Polarising light yellow ultrasight with liquid frames. Yellow ultrasight is almost grey, need to look very hard to see yellow tint. Light yellow is coloured like those old driving glasses.

Fantastic in poor light, great in bright light, ok in clear-skies.

Took sunglasses, never used them even though there was not a cloud in sight on most days.

Cheapest polarised lens I found, would need to spend a fortune to get a similar quality lens on say Oakley. Also, found the large, cover-your-face approach of all the other vendors a little unimaginative. The sun tan marks I had at the end of the holiday were not much worse than glasses.

Previously I had VERY OLD UVEX (10 years), double lens - grey. I can't believe I ever skied in them. Tried once in St Anton (Lech), it was snowing lightly and was complete white-out conditions; Couldn't see tracks left by previous skiers, small bumps were a surprise when they arrived.

It was my first run in the resort, I was mid-turn and had to bale-out because I didn't see the drop until the tips of my skis were about two foot away. Later, back in St Anton I found that moguls in a marked ski-route in a bowl between two peak were hilarious, couldn't see a three foot bump when they were one bump (about 1.5 metre) away.

Two mates in more modern goggles, one yellow the other pink, had similar problems.

Vowed that day that my next goggles would be polarised.

I would say that polarising filters are ESSENTIAL for goggles, as the kind of conditions when goggles become mandatory is the kind of conditions when perception of the surface ahead of you becomes critical.