“ A deer’ s sight picture is more than twice as wide as ours,” he said.
Nietz continued:“ In fact, they see in 280 degrees compared to our measly 120— so, it’ s like they’ re seeing in panorama. With that enormous swath of vision, deer lose a little bit of clarity, so if we see 20 / 20, deer see a slightly blurrier 20 / 40. Further, deer eyes are equipped with many more rods than ours— highly sensitive photoreceptors that can’ t detect color, but can be triggered by a single photon. They see much greater detail in much darker conditions than we can, albeit in black and white.”
“ And it’ s not just deer we’ re talking about,” he continued, since ungulates— hoofed animals like deer, elk, goats, sheep, and pigs— all evolved with very similar eyesight.“ They’ re all dichromats with cones that perceive yellow and blue, meaning they’ re colorblind to the red spectrum.”
SO HOW DO YOU TRICK THE UNGULATE EYE?
You hire someone that helps hide humans from other humans in warzones … millions of humans.
Sitka reached out to Guy Kramer. In 2014, when the research and development started for the Subalpine pattern, Cramer’ s algorithmic digital patterns concealed more than one-million soldiers in about a dozen countries worldwide, and those numbers have grown substantially.
In a simple sense, Cramer uses algorithms to create digital camo patterns that accomplish two things— first these patterns break the silhouettes of the wearers, and second, they“ delay” recognition of a subject by creating smaller, more detailed patterns that make the hidden wearer appear to be part of the background.
So, those two people( Cramer and Neitz) were integral in getting the science of sight, and the digital patterns to disrupt that site, into place. But what did the process look like? That’ s where John Barklow, comes in—
BIG GAME PRODUCT MANAGER: 36 FAILURES OF THE SUBALPINE PATTERN
Barklow coordinated the field-testing and recon from the mountains where the Subalpine Pattern was created. Barklow was given the responsibility of having final approval. His job was“ inthe-field” viability, offering feedback and recommendations to the design teams working on the new pattern. You may think with all the scientific research, all the algorithms and planning, Sitka could just press“ print” and have a new camo pattern perfect for close contact in the subalpine areas where ungulate hunters stalk. But you’ d be wrong.
The initial patterns came out to Barklow … and went back to the design team with feedback from the field multiple times. Each time, Barklow adjusted and sent them back into the field. Sitka then redesigned the redesigned patterns based on Barklow’ s pictures and feedback and sent him new patterns. Those new patterns came back to Barklow, and went back to design with feedback … and he kept sending the preliminary camo patterns back to the design team to be made“ just a little bit better.”
Before the new Subalpine Pattern was given the Sitka stamp of approval, it was sent back to the science of Dr. Neitz and the algorithms of Guy Kramer and redesigned 36 times. On the 37th iteration of the GORE OPTIFADE™ Concealment Subalpine™ pattern, the cameraman was unable to focus on the model, because he couldn’ t see the model, from inside 25 yards— so, Barklow had to stand next to the model for
Photo by Sitka Gear
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