=Filters for the Photographic Detection of Camouflage.=—In the
photographic as in the visual detection of camouflage, the problem is to
differentiate colors which ordinarily look alike, but which are actually
of different color composition. Particularly important are the
differences between natural foliage greens and the paints used to
simulate them. If these differ in their reflection spectra, a proper
choice of filter will show up the two greens as markedly different. Two
kinds of difference may be produced; either the two colors may be
changed in relative brightness, or they may be altered in hue. Thus
foliage green, due to its possessing a reflection band in the red of the
spectrum, which is absent in most pigments, may be made to appear _red_
while the camouflage remains green or turns black. Filters which cause
changes of color are of course of no use for photographic detection of
camouflage, since the photographic image is colorless. Brightness
differences are alone available.
Those same filters which have been worked out primarily for producing
brightness differences in visual detection of camouflage could be used
photographically, provided the plates employed were color sensitive, and
were as well screened to imitate the sensibility of the eye. But the
most useful visual filters are those causing color differences to
appear; more than this, the visual camouflage detection filters as a
class have low light transmissions, so that their usefulness in
photography is doubtful. Little work has actually been done with
camouflage detection filters for photography. Yet in spite of this
photography has been of real service in this form of detective work. Its
utility for the purpose comes from the fact that the natural
sensitiveness of the plate to blue, violet and invisible ultra-violet
acts to extend the range of the spectrum in which differences between
identical and merely visually matched colors may be picked up.
Consequently the plain unscreened plate has proved a very efficient
camouflage detector—so efficient in fact that all camouflage materials
have had to be subjected to a photographic test before acceptance. Fig.
171 shows how an ordinary photograph reveals the unnatural character of
the camouflage over a battery.
=Methods of Mounting and Using Filters.=—The most primitive way of
mounting a gelatin filter is to cut a disc from a sheet of dyed gelatin
and insert it between the components of the lens. For this purpose the
gelatin must be perfectly flat, which is insured by its method of
preparation and test. One disadvantage of this method is that the filter
can be inserted and removed only upon the ground. It is less
satisfactory the larger the diameter of the lens, and the wastage of
filters due to insertion and removal is apt to be high. The camera
should be refocussed after filters of this kind are inserted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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