The Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses are surprisingly refined polarized sunglasses that have been designed for all-day performance and comfort while fishing. Fishing guides need excellent quality to read the water and spot fish, of course, but you don’t have to fish to appreciate the Guide’s Choice. In fact, the Guide’s Choice sunglasses are great for paddleboarding, rafting, boating, and kayaking.
To get us a closer look, Smith Optics sent Man Makes Fire a review unit. After testing the Guide’s Choice Sunglasses with a ChromaPop Polarized Green Mirror Lens option, this is what we learned:
Review: Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses
The Smith Guide’s Choice polarized sunglasses excel at cutting on-water glare to help reveal fish and underwater details while fishing.Smith Optics have a reputation for making some of the best snow goggles on the planet. I’ve reviewed Smith snow gear in the past, including the excellent Smith 4D MAG Goggles for skiing and snowboarding and the Vantage MIPS Helmet. When it comes to the Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses, I was expecting a high quality experience.
What I wasn’t expecting was a truly outstanding experience. Every design element of the Guide’s Choice has been fine-tuned for all-day, on-the-water performance. During the testing process, I’ve worn the Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses while fly fishing on rivers from a raft, on shore, and while wading. I’ve also worn them while stand-up paddleboarding on iSUPs on lakes. I’ve tested them driving, and they were even my first choice for a backpacking trip.
I have lots of great sunglasses, but I’ve found myself reaching for the Smith Guide’s Choice pair on purpose more and more often.
Go-To Sunglasses?
I find myself reaching for the Smith Guide’s Choice polarized sunglasses whenever I plan to hit the water, including stand-up paddleboarding, kayaking and rafting.Why have I spent so much time in the Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses?
First, the polarized ChromaPop lenses are vivid. The images produced as just very, very good with a huge field of view. Second, the fit is astoundingly comfortable. The fit is actually intentionally created through some key features — which I’ll get to. Third, the shape of the lenses give you a versatile everyday style. I can wear the Smith Guide’s Choice Sunglasses while fishing, while hiking, as well as while hanging out at the beach, riding, or out and about in town.
Still, when you’re buying a pair of a high-end sunglasses online, there are some details you might want to know more about first. Let’s take a closer look:
Start with ChromaPop
Smith’s ChromaPop lens technology filters out overlapping wavelengths of blue, green and red light to help you distinguish colors better, resulting in a more vivid experience. ChromaPop lenses work no matter which lens tint you choose.Polarization is important for fishing and on-the-water sunglasses, but polarization alone doesn’t make a great view. For crisp, vivid images you need a quality lens. Smith, it turns out, has a filter technology it calls ChromaPop that helps your eyes perceive colors with better definition. The result is improved perceived clarity and color.
So what does ChromaPop do? Basically, Smith says that most people’s retinas have trouble recognizing the difference between overlapping blue/green and red/green light.
ChromaPop lens tech filters out overlapping wavelengths of blue, green, and red light so you can perceive more accurate colors.
Outside, it makes your world seem brighter and more vivid. It’s kind of cool, actually. Big fan here. It also works well in Smith’s 4D MAG Snow Goggles.
Polarization
Polarized lenses are designed to cut reflected light glare from surfaces like water. By cutting glare and increasing contrast, you can see objects more clearly that are being hammered by harsh angled light. In the case of water, polarization makes it much easier to see below the surface — especially when the angle of sunlight wants to glare out your view.
The Smith Guide’s Choice overall quality is superb
This means that you can see down into water easier with polarized lenses and spot fish. Hence, Guide’s Choice refers to fishing guides who need to be able to see into the water to help put their fishing clients in front of fish.
Polarized sunglasses are also good for seeing the bottom of a river or lake, which is why I like to wear the Guide’s Choice sunglasses while standup paddleboarding. I enjoy looking into the water and spotting fish and rocks and sunken logs when I’m on an iSUP or kayaking. If you like these water sports, polarized glasses will give you a whole new place to look.
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Functional Lens Shape
The moderate wrap delivers an outstanding field of view with great UV protection, including protection from sunlight reflecting off the surface of water at low angles to your face.The Guide’s Choice lenses have a functional shape. They have enough curve to deliver a big field of view — and the height and width provides great sun protection without seeming comical.
Even though they have an 8 base curve, Smith is still able to fill quite a few prescriptions if you want a pair of custom RX sunglasses and don’t want big flat lenses. To see if they’ll work with your prescription, Smith has an online tool that you can use to input an order.
In addition to the reasonable wrap, the frame’s relatively wide width at the temples helps block out side glare.
Why Are the Guide’s Choice Sunglasses So Comfortable?
The curved temples keep pressure off the sides of your head, which is great for all-day wear. The spring hinges give you just the right amount of hug to keep them in place, too.Smith has shaped the Guide’s Choice frames with a bit of curve around the temple area. This wider than usual temple construction keeps the frames from touching the side of your head until they meet near your ears. Lots of people are sensitive to temple pressure and, especially over time, get headaches or simple irritation from it.
Because the frames have this wider curve, comfort is improved.
I believe the biggest key to comfort, however, comes from the self-adjusting spring hinges. Wow. These hinges are fantastic. They give you nearly 4 inches of expansion beyond the standard position. While you won’t use all that unless you have an extremely large head, the result for most people — including me — is a hinge that effortlessly expands yet also hugs my head.
The hinges and temple shape result in sunglasses that stay put exactly where they should. No matter where you look or how fast you turn your head, the Guide’s Choice sunglasses will move with you. They do with me. On multiple occasions, I must admit, I’ve fallen off of my iSUP and splashed underwater while wearing the Guide’s Choice sunglasses. They’ve stayed on my face remarkably well.
Meanwhile, the nose pads are also comfortable. I can wear the Smith Guide’s Choice sunglasses for 10 straight hours in total comfort.
Three Frame Size Choices for the Perfect Fit
The Smith Guide’s Choice XL polarized sunglasses share the same overall design as the regular Guides Choice — they’re just a bit bigger.Smith now makes three size options in its Guide’s Choice sunglasses:
- Guide’s Choice S — small-to-medium fit
- Guides Choice — medium-to-large fit
- Guide’s Choice XL — extra large fit
In my experience testing the Smith’s Guide’s Choice sunglasses on myself and friends and family who would try them on, the standard Guide’s Choice will likely fit most people well. I wouldn’t go to the XL unless you know you have a much larger-than-average noggin. While some women with medium faces can wear the standard Guide’s Choice with good results, I do think the S would likely be the smarter choice for many women.
Smith does list the Guide’s Choice S under its women’s sunglasses section, but I think that has more to do with the company’s underlying computer system than it does with marketing. The overall build has the same design as the other sizes, so it’s not a style issue either. If you’re a guy with a small face, get the S version and enjoy the fit.
Key Choices: Color and Glass
For an all-around lens color that’s good for most everything, it’s hard to go wrong with brown tints.Smith offers a whopping 19 frame and color options in its Guide’s Choice sunglasses! The S version has nine options while the XL version has 10 options.
When it comes to performance, you have some lens choices that could affect your decision.
Smith says that different colors enhance your vision in different ways, letting you see deeper into the water with better definition. Here are the Smith recommendations for lens color choices (if you’re trying squeak out the best possible experience for specific situations):
- Blue: Ideal for offshore, deepwater fishing — great for unfiltered sunlight
- Green: Great for inshore/freshwater anglers — excellent contrast and detail in sunny and medium-light environments
- Ignitor: Perfect for low-light situations, this rose-tinted lens improves color and contrast at dawn, dusk, and overcast conditions
- Brown: Great for everyday use, good for a wide range of conditions — most versatile option
What about glass?
Our test pair of Smith Guide’s Choice sunglasses have the non-glass polycarbonate polarized ChromaPop green lens option. They’ve held up great so far, but if you want extra scratch protection, choose a glass lens version.Smith’s Techlite lenses are a lightweight polarized glass while the ChromaPop Glass lenses are a more typical weight. Standard ChromaPop or ChromaPop+ lenses are basically Smith versions of polycarbonate lenses. The glass versions cost a bit more.
The key benefit of buying glass lenses is that they are highly scratch-resistant. I have not babied the Guide’s Choice sunglasses with polycarbonate lenses and they’ve held up very well so far. If you are very hard on your sunglasses and/or have had problems with scratched lenses in the past, consider the upgrade to glass for the best possible scratch resistance.
Learn more about ChromaPop, lens color options, and base curves at Smith here!
The Bottom Line
The Smith Guide’s Choice Polarized Sunglasses now come in three size options, but what what’s even better is how they adapt to your face for a great fit. The overall quality is superb. The polarized lenses do a fantastic job of cutting on-water glare. Last of all, and maybe this is the most important point, the 8-base lens curvature gives you a thoroughly useful wraparound fit with a huge field-of-view . . . and it still manages to deliver a versatile everyday style. Very highly recommended.
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Guide’s Choice Size Specs Compared
Lens height: 41mm
Lens width: 58mm
Bridge width: 14mm
Temple length: 120mm
Lens height: 42mm
Lens width: 62mm
Bridge width: 17mm
Temple length: 120mm
Lens height: 44mm
Lens width: 63mm
Bridge width: 19mm
Temple length: 125mm
