Very interesting. Thanks for the information. Cabelas sells very good cotton safari shirts in a variety of colors. I like the dark green and gray, myself. I've found in hunting whitetails that a simple net face mask from the eyes down is very helpful.

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:
Wink, Blair,

Not sure about in Africa, but certainly in Europe, the German Field Army Grey seems to work well.

The gent who was my stalking mentor prefered tradional style European hunting clothing and a lot of his summer clothes were in this shade of grey. When out stalking with him, I noticed once he was stationary, time and time again how well it blended in our woodlands. It was almost as if colour was "neutral" such that the human eye/brain didn't register it?

Perhaps it is no coindecence that many animals in this parter of the world have a coat which approximates this colour grey...rabbits, grey squirrels, the winter coats of various deer ect...

With regards current cammo patterns, except for a few military patterns, most are primarily designed with the human eye in mind and many of the modern hunter patterns are very specific to certain back grounds. This is not a mistake but good marketing as it encourages people to buy more.

Very often patterns that look good close up suffer from "blobbing out" from a distance, as the pattern is to fussy and doesn't offer enough contrast. This is often compounded when the fabric is wet and goes darker...

Of all the military patterns, I've always thought the one on the old British WW2 era Denison smock would work well in Southern Africa.

Having said that, I am a firm believer that if you watch your scent and movement, you don't really need cammo for hunting...

Regards,

Pete

Pete,

Very interesting what you say about feldgrau, especially when staionary. I noticed this myself often in Namibia.

And one only has to look at a Kudu's coloration with those white body stripes that resemble dappled sunlight in bush, to see how effective it can be.

The other pattern I saw in use was Sniper Afica and it worked well. The Natural Gear was capable of making the person wearing it disappear at a couple of metres, if in thornbush.

Agree completely about scent and movement, but if camo gives you even a slight edge.........

The other factor is that it is just not "cool" to be seen in pics wearing camo in deepest , darkest Africa!

Regards,

Blair.

/

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:

So what we did was to solicit the help of some "experts" from the University of Calfornia Irvine ( Tony had some connections there) and we came up with patterns and colours based on the animal eye vison model.

It was not very appealing to the eye and we concluded nobody would likely want to buy it cause it did not "look right"

Alf,

Do you have any pictures of what the "ugly" camo looked like?

Alf, not that I doubt that what you're saying is true, but how was the following determined and how correct is it, i.e. 40%, 60%, 80% or perhaps more?

quote:

You have to blot out the fact that they see no reds at all! and all high spots on the face clothing and your firearm looks like the reflections from dayglo in a blue ( UV light ) at a disco

Secondly, where does yellow fit in?
(If I remember correctly from my waterpaint days yellow and green mixed together made blue!)

Lastly, why "dayglo in a blue" why not sometimes orange (early mornings with sunrise) or yellow (midday)?

Just trying to understand what I've observed and which is definitely a fact. (See earlier post.)

Whatever colour you finally decide on, do not arrive with very well washed, crisp clothing that has had 90 minutes in the washer with modern washing powder, loaded as it is with colour enhancers that increase the UV reflective ability of your cammo. If you do, give it a thorough dusting in camp first. Camp laundry is fine as it is usually bashing your clothes around a cast iron bath or other hole with cheapo soap

It would appear that some animals see more UV light than others. (purely casual observation)
I go over all my hunting gear with a black light to make sure of what can be seen.
I do agree though with other posters that movement counts most but their is no point in ignoring a potential source of failure.

Something interesting -

quote:

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one colour, pink.

If you stare at the black + in the centre, the moving dot turns to green.

Now, concentrate on the black + in the centre of the picture. After a short period of time, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a green dot rotating.

It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see.

("Pinkies" may just turn into GREEN jeeps if you stare at their black tyres!!)

How do we know the above is not also true with ungulates?
Guess we'll never know!

Then the next on the Journal of Vision website:

quote:

One of the most dramatic differences believed to differentiate the visual world of the dichromat from the trichromat is that for dichromats there are no intermediate hues. For a dichromat, when colors from the two ends of the spectrum are mixed, rather than getting an intermediate hue, the result is either achromatic (white or gray) or a desaturated version of one of the two basic hues (ie, a pastel blue or yellow).


Figure 3. Difference between dichromatic color vision of the horse and normal human color vision. Left. Color wheel representing the spectrum of colors perceived by the trichromatic human visual system. Right. Reducing the number of types of cone from three to two results in dichromatic color vision, and an enormous reduction in the number of different colors seen.

Só, my field observation re white maize not being seen by Impalas as opposed to yellow maize being seen immediately, is perfectly correct.
My eyes didn't take me for a ride this time round!

Well that just completly freeks me out

Redlander, if you see facts and the getting down to the correct knowledge as carrying around the big stick, feel free to do so.

To ignore field observations because they don't fit in with the so-called 'facts' is as ridiculous as your woman saying she is only a little bit pregnant - nothing to worry about!

At least we all know now that pastel blues and yellows (including tan khaki!) are the colours to be avoided in camo wear when hunting in the bush.

The rotating pink dots. Cool. Whodda thunk?

quote:

July 26, 2006
Optical illusions - Rotating wheels

Is this image really moving?


The wheels in this image appear to move – even though in reality they are utterly stationary.

The illusion is so strong that many people feel nauseous if they look at the image for more than a few moments – and may feel ill for some time afterwards.

Notice that only those wheels in your peripheral vision appear to rotate. When you look directly at one of the wheels, you can’t ‘catch’ it moving!

Until very recently scientists had struggled to explain this and other ‘anomalous motion’ illusions. However, a paper published in June 2005 has begun to shed light on how your brain might be interpreting this illusion.

Each wheel in the illusion is made up of 4 coloured elements: black, blue, white and yellow – in that order.

It would seem the critical feature for making the wheels rotate, is the differences in the levels of luminance between adjacent elements.

This means that the illusion also works well when printed in black and white.
The Journal of Neuroscience.

Só, now that we know what colours ungulates see best, we should also make sure that the other colours we use on camo clothing are arranged in such a way that the illusion of motion is not created by the differences in the levels of luminance between adjacent elements in the pattern, even if you stand dead still!

Complicated, isn't it?

No wonder very few, if any, camo clothing is really working satisfactorily in the hunting situation.

quote:

Originally posted by Jagter:


The wheels in this image appear to move – even though in reality they are utterly stationary.
.

Yikes!!! What is wrong with me if they don't appear to be moving??

Anyway now I know why I don't get airsick.

quote:

Originally posted by JAL:

quote:

Originally posted by Jagter:


The wheels in this image appear to move – even though in reality they are utterly stationary.
.

Yikes!!! What is wrong with me if they don't appear to be moving??

Anyway now I know why I don't get airsick.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't see any movement.

Ask Walter with the pink flowers on his hat!

quote:

Originally posted by Jagter:
[QUOTE] July 26, 2006
Optical illusions - Rotating wheels

Is this image really moving?

So no one else can see the nude blond reclining in the graphic?

Gentlemen,

"Khakhi" as the colour is pronounced, is derived from a Farsi/Urdu word meaning "Earth colour," a term that has been used in India for centuries for this type of cloth. The dust coloured (as in much of North India) cloth that was usually made of dyed heavy cotton or sometimes linen is still made in India for use as police uniforms and as a school uniform in many Catholic schools.

"Khakhi" refers not only to a specific colour, it also refers to a type of fabric. The greenish-brown colour is something that any Indian would be able to identify in an instant. If it is genuine "khakhi" then it cannot be tan or any variation on a very specific blend of colours. The fabric is very comfortable to wear in the intense Indian heat in the summer and the weave of genuine khakhi shirts or trousers also allows them to be squeezed and rid of water when they becomes wet. The British learned about it's merits in the mid 1800s and then made it the material for their uniforms first in India and then, in other parts of the world. It was the high tech clothing in it's day and still has merit in a specific Indian/tropical context if real khakhi cloth - not just the colour - is used. Only one major cloth mill in India, Binnys, the former Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, make this and other traditional weaves from the Raj era like drill, (the heavy white shirt cloth used to make drill uniforms) khakhi etc. I know that the Binnys people tried getting Indian fashion designers interested in the material for many years but the stuff has too much of a "uniform" connotation for it to be fashionable in India. However, Levi Strauss did make some trousers of genuine khakhi under their "Sykes" brand name some years ago. I have some of these that I brought with me to the US. However, it must have been a limited effort - no store here seems to have these any more. As far as the other traditional cloth, drill, is concerned, I have not seen anyone other than policemen in Southern India wear it over the last thirty years. Sometimes, fashion becomes a reason for genuinely good fabric to be disregarded.

Great post, Mehul, thanks for the historical perspective. I wonder how many here will know what the "Raj" was . Take care, jorge

Jorge,

My pleasure. I wore khakhi as a schoolboy and then for many years wouldn;t go near it at a barge pole's length because it always reminded me of my school uniform for twelve years. These days I am older and wiser and can appreciate it's merits better. As an optimist, I think that it is only a question of time before someone in the West appreciates it's merits and starts designing comfortable summer clothing from it.

Levis use the name "Khaki" (without the second "h" for fashionable clothing which is not strictly khakhi and I hope that either they or Tommy Hilfiger who regularly send cotton to India from the US to get it woven into cloth there would someday start designing clothing that is genuine khakhi. Fashion designers may not lean towards it because it is drab in colour but no one can deny how comfortable it is when worn in the sun or in the heavy Indian monsoon rains.

Best wishes and I am glad that you enjoyed the historical information,

Correct me if I'm wrong -

Khakhi = material woven from cotton.

Denim = material woven from cotton.

Both comfortable in hot weather simply because it is a natural fibre that allows the body to breath through it.

Denim, the far more developed brand, highly fashionable and strongly in demand by both young and old.

Both (Westernized khaki) as well as blue denim, useless in hunting - highly visible to ungulates.

Seems 'khakhi' lost the battle decades ago!
Why bother?

Mehul: I try and purchase safari clothing made over in africa and approximates the old khaki. Yes I enjoyed the historical anecdote. Loved "Freedom at Midnight". jorge

Some observations...
from my experience concerning this camo business. In the dela in SE asia I wore levis on some missions, at times a blue denim long sleeve shirt or a grey UNC hooded sweatshirt. Others wore other combinations of colors in civilian attire. We did, at times, wear our tigerstripe camo and or a combo of the old style jungle camo.

One was as effective as the other, we proved to ourselves that movement control was primary with clothing a distant second.

In my present environment our outfits consist of either the desert BDU composed of shades of brown and tan or the new army ACU with it's shades of computer generated greys. In our own tests here my men were convinced, as was I, the new ACU was superior to the DCU...try this...put your camo on and back off 25 meters in the brush/woods, then have another turn around and id you as quickly as he can, then 50 meters, then 75 meters,...you will find as we did that the "standard hunting camos" become a single dark mass as the distance increases. The new ACU does not, we did not have brush or woods so my guy would move out and just lay down on the sand. The velcro on the ACU does suck and we remove all of it on mission uniforms.

We depend 99% on self-control of body movement and 1% on our uniform to remain undetected.

Please realize that these are two different environments, SE Asia was a closequarter/vegatated situation whereas our present one is more distance/very sparse vegatation.

This is all my personal opinion FWIW, no scientific study, could be totally out in left field on this but it is my experience. Would be interested in hearing other's experiences.

In addition, all the Brits here utilize sand colored vehicles as do we.

The retiring SFC E7
11 Days and counting!

ps My thanks to all for the magazines, books etc you sent this past year and all the posts. This has been my escape time, reading your trip reports and laughing at some of the antics that take place here, thanks again all of you.
Larry

Jagter,

From your comparison of denim with Khakhi I can see that you do not have experience with real Khakhi clothing. As I said, the term relates to a specific kind of weave which has an airy feel in the heat. It can also be easily squeezed and water removed from it when it gets wet. Try doing that with your denims. To say that both denim and khakhi are made of cotton and that they must therefore be the same is like saying that since the Mustang and the Focus are both made by Ford, they are one and the same.

Jorge,

After I posted on this thread, I checked with a friend in the clothing business in India and he told me that genuine khakhi clothing is made in South Africa by local clothing manufacturers. You may well be getting the real thing.

Good hunting, gentlemen!

quote:

From your comparison of denim with Khakhi I can see that you do not have experience with real Khakhi clothing.

Obviously, I'm not a born and bred Indian like you apparently are!

However, you should have noticed that I said:
"Both (Westernized khaki) as well as blue denim."
Not referring to Indian "khakhi".

And if I wasn't such a great Ford fan, I could have told you, like you said: " ..... is like saying that since the Mustang and the Focus are both made by Ford, they are one and the same", that it is also true, because all Fords are common, rattle boxes, each with it's own name.

Unfortunately, the khaki we know in SA has many other negative connotations attached to it apart from the fact that it is not a good colour for hunting purposes.

Once again, why bother?