My son and I tried to photograph some camo we were working on, using yarn and dyed burlap, and raffia, for a ghillie suits setup. First we did it all inside with on camera flash.... After seeing what had taken place, we tried it outside in full sunlight.... It was the same results. Now I'm old and used to having film to work with, but due to the costs and inability anymore to operate a lab, much less buy the chemicals... I went to digital. We still have the film cameras, but decided this was a faster way to get what we needed. The yarn was ok....no real color shift there, and the same for the raffia, which was natural white, dyed leaf green and bark brown. But, the burlap even though it appears to the eye to be of several shades of green, from teal to forest/dark green, shows up as grey's and blacks??? The same brown dye used for the raffia, was also used for the burlap and it looks horrendously red in the photos! The suit looks like it should by human eye, but the digital cameras see something else entirely. Now we are using the Canon Powershot Pro 1's, and Canon 20d's. They don't change at all. Any ideas why the digital is so much different in color than what we see? It has us baffled! 2 different computer screens, and we checked them for color balance as well as the white balance on the 2 camera models.....
If you have done the white balance before shooting, the cameras should be OK, but not necessarily. Different CCD mfrs have different biases (thus spake my guru, but I really do NOT know if he has a clue what he raves about.) Save the shots in raw format and jiggle them under a Kelvin setting of whatever you think is fair until the image and your eye agree with the real thing. You might also have to meddle with the display on the monitor to match the real thing. (Color rendition with my Olympus doesn't always match my eye, either.) And you thought you had problems with film dyes --
My biggest problem with digital pics is my cheapo Lexmark printer not printing the color hues I see on screen. Colors that really 'pop' on screen print out darker or muted. Increasing brightness on the print merely washes it out. I may need to pony up for a better printer.
Well, we tried it again today after spending hours of trying to "recalibrate" for the correct colors.... Windows "paint" was no help. Wearetrying adobe photoshop, but so far "no cigar"! I decided that I'll just have to live with what 'someone' programmed the cameras to see and do...for now anyway.
I have a buddy who had a friend repaint his Dual Sport bike in a good effective camo pattern. About three different colors in a desert type scheme, with an overspray using a mesh screen giving it a 'snake skin' pattern - he was photographing the job on each stage and comparing to pics of actual camo. Problem is, the camera got to where it couldn't 'see' the camo on the bike - it could not focus on it! Interesting effect - kind of a 'stealth effect'. But it does show the limits of digital photography.
Digital cameras see farther into the infrared than you do. You're seeing what the camo would look like to a night vision scope with an IR illuminator. Change your camo dyes.
Hmmmm,.... I was afraid of that! Now the question is: where can one find dyes that are not influenced by IR type devices, and such? I know that many camo's out there work exactly the same as mine does.... (guess that's why some camo just isn't so good under conditions where you may come under the eyes of the IR!) I could use dead grasses and the like, it would be difficult, but it could be done. I'd have to forego commercial dyes and use all natural substances that would not react with the IR's wavelength...?
I recently was informed to have a "true" camo, I'd have to use not only "raffia" grass, but also "moss". They come in a variety of sizes and can be cut and attached easily to most any type of clothing, but those that are dyed, have to have been done so with "natural" earth dyes only, to be really effective. Problem is, I cannot seem to find natural dyes as of yet! The local "Michael's" art and craft store has the materials but not the dyes.
