For those that do a lot of welding...
 

What range is your lens shade? What darkened setting do you use most? Mine goes down to 10 and sometimes I have a hard time seeing on a low setting on the welder when doing fine, light gauge sheetmetal. I'm curious what others are doing.

If you use a silver faced lens it will reflect light from the welding. This seemed to help alot. If you see spots after welding the lens is not dark enough.

I'd like to go lighter actually, but I don't know if a 9 is too light. I've never (or don't remember that far back, lol) used one that light.

My helmet has a range of 8 - 14

I have pretty sensitive eyes, and stick to 12 welding and turn it down to 8 for plasma cutting (those light tinted torch-goggles don't cut it for me). Any less, and my eyes get sore pretty fast.

I'm on 10 all the time but I have a hard time seeing sometimes also...I actually find a bright light nearby helps alot, I keep dual head 500 watt halogen "painters" light nearby...cheap and blinding bright.

Mine ranges from nine to thirteen and it's set a hair above ten with no problems.

There are silver pencils that work better than the old white ones, at least for me anyway. The weld area that is highlighted seams to just pop once the weld is started. Cheap and easy to try.

I commonly use a lighter shade than most, but have filters for my (manual) hood that range from 8-14. For any TIG above about 25 amps, I use a 9. MIG I use a 9 for anything up to about 3/8" plate.

If you're seeing how light you can go, do this: Weld for atleast 5 minutes straight, stop, and look around. If you get the same effect as walking into a building from outside on a very bright day, then you're too light. See blue spots? Not good!

I use 9 when I mig.

In my opinion and I weld on a daily basis mostly Tig, also mig and fuel. If you are having trouble seeing especially spot welding with an autodarkening. I would recomend putting that expensive hood in the corner and using a standard hood with a #9-10 Gold lense. I found a hood with a 4x5 lense to be the most useful. Don't get me wrong I do own an A/D setup it is seldom used except in very tight places, I personally do not like the more than common flashes that take place with an A/D hood