They are telling you to see a doctor! I've got twenty years on you, and I
have serious astigmatism and haven't experienced that.

 I agree with the other answer. Get to a opthalmologist.
This is not normal.

feb204 from Lloyd Erlick,

Your symptoms are telling you to go pay good money to an
opthalmologist. It will be a huge bargain no matter what they charge
to tell you there's no problem. If there is a problem, it won't get
solved on Usenet! Delay is unwise, because as we all know, medical
conditions sometimes proceed quickly and painlessly.

I've paid a lot of attention to my eyesight as I've aged under the
safelight. In my case, eyestrain is mostly caused by trying too hard
to see where there just isn't enough light. That came from a
relatively bright safelight. When I was younger, I could see (although
I think I was still straining my eyes dong it). Now it hurts after a
while, and I find that by keeping my darkroom nearly dark, just a dim
red light for orientation, I don't try to see the image come up (one
of life's pleasures foregone) and I don't strain at all. And looking
at the projected image in the dark is a no-no too, unless it's
necessary. That's another thing I used to enjoy...

A baseball cap is eyestrain control device number one.

regards,
--le
_______________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits,
2219 Gerrard Street East, unit #1,
Toronto M4E 2C8 Canada.
                ---
voice 416-686-0326
lloyd@the-wire.com
http://www.heylloyd.com
_______________________________________

1. Go to an eye doctor.

2. Get a Kodak 10 x 12 safelight, OC filter, and a long 40 watt bulb.

Nyctalopia ... poor night vision.

In extremely dim light, if you stare at something without moving your
eyes at all, your vision will fade out completely in five to ten
seconds.  This results from fatigue in the cells of the retina.  Moving
your gaze, even slightly, restores the vision.  This is normal.

However, if you are seeing this fading out in situations where it hasn't
occurred before, and especially if this is a fairly recent change, you
should see an ophthalmologist, just to make sure it isn't anything
serious.  It's not normal for everything to go dark and stay that way
until you move into normal light, so you have to have that checked.
Common causes include easily correctible things like vitamin deficiency,
smoking, or use of alcohol, more difficult things to correct like
cataracts, or uncorrectible things like retinitis pigmentosa.

While the chances of it being something serious are relatively slim,
eyesight is so important that you really cannot afford to not have it
checked by a doctor.  Go to an ophthalmologist, NOT an optometrist.

The symptoms you describe are unusual, although fading in very low light
when staring at something is normal.  Note that safelights for
black-and-white use do not qualify as "very low light" in this sense,
although some safelights used for color work (which are practically the
same as total darkness) do.

There isn't necessarily any connection between night blindness and
vision impairment in normal light, so don't panic.  But you do need to
get it checked.

The symptoms are telling you to see an opthalmologist.  Even the most
comprehensive eye exams are painless and pretty easy to conduct.