You have seen a lot pictures of wildlife photographers behind long lenses and those lenses have camo lens covers. As matter of fact, my long lenses do have them, which either are there when I bought them used or I bought the camo lens cover later on. Two main reasons behind putting camo covers: 1) you give your lens an added protection against minor bumping, rubbing as to keep the lens in mint condition, etc. and 2) you don't disturb the wildlife since the color of your gear with camo would match, closely match the surrounding. While I understand reason No. 1, I am not sure about reason No. 2 though. The manufacturer of camo lens covers touts the No. 2 reason quite a bit. Is wildlife that perceptive? We are talking a tiny spot in the overall scheme. Not that the lens is red or neon orange; as you know it is either pastel white or black. If that would be the case, we need to wear camouflage, too. Especially, since the size of our body is definitely larger than our lens. Well, some wildlife photographers do but most of us do not. Yet, we keep putting camo on our lens(es). Will camo lend more credibility to what we are doing or indicates a serious level of wildlife/bird photography? Do we really know why? Any other thoughts?
I would imagine if you yourself are dressed in camo, the lens would be the most obvious piece standing out, if it's a white lens. Just like duck hunters, the idea is to not be seen by the ducks, hence the camo nets, and such.
Daniel, if you are in street clothing, then it doesn't make sense to use have a camo lens cover, right? Mostly, I am wearing jeans while taking pictures.... .
If you wear camo and put camo coats on your lenses, would you have to camo your tripod legs and flash and better beam too (if you use one). How about a Camo hat or even paint your face in camo. After all the lower sun can be very reflective if you have oily skin.
I've been a hunter for over 50 years and never used camo and never scared any game away. In Washington state you are required to wear hunter orange, kind of defeats the purpose of camo!! I think camo catches more hunters and photographers dollars than anything else. The one thing that will scare game off is bright chrome flashing in the sunlight. White lenses might alert game as pure white is not a natural color in nature. Quick movement will scare game faster than anything I know of.
My cameras and lenses have always been black so it hasn't been an issue. If your wife, girlfriend, or SO sews you can go to a fabric store buy some cheap printed fabric (there are all types of earthy patters) and in about 1/2 hour have yourself a decent cover for very little money.
Port Mahon, Delaware. Sitting on the ground with tripod and big lens. No camo and the only problem I had was the birds wouldn't stay OUTSIDE the lens minimum focusing distance. You can't deny camo is beneficial in many instances , especially with animals and ducks but most birds won't be scared off if you just stay still.
The plovers on Deer Isle are not acclimated to humans - one glimpse of a person and they're gone at least 100 metres away, and they don't come back when you just sit still.
Actually, deer are not "color blind". However the way they interpret different colors is not the same as our vision. And they do not differentiate the color spectrum in the same fashion as we do. But having researched this and been a hunter/photographer for a fair while, I find that good technique trumps camo everytime.
But the animals can "see us" most of the time. It's mostly do we present enough of a difference in their surroundings to make us worth responding to.
Recent trips to a couple of different National Wildlife refuges are convincing me that "the winged critters" at least are learning or already know that 2 legged critters with "one big eye" ( read photographers with long camera lens) don't often eat birds. Some even seem to "pose" for you. An example recently was the way a number different migrating eagles, hawks and falcons flew directly around the Hawk Watch platform which was filled with people, spotting scopes, binoculars and a few long lenses. No one was in true camo and the birds certainly could "see" 50 to 70 people moving around on the large wooden platform. Makes you wonder sometimes who is watching who? Just wish they would fly a little slower when they're that close.
On deer, they even see slightly into both the IR and UV ends of the visible spectrum. Their ability to distinguish different colors is not however very acute. And like many "wild" critters they do respond to changes and bright colors, bling, etc will draw their attention. Orange is in a portion of the spectrum deer do not differentiate all that well. But studies have shown that they can see slightly into the UV. So clothes freshly washed in fabric softener can "glow" like a white shirt under a UV lamp to the deer.
Btw bird do see 4 colors where as we see 3 colors. It's an interesting subject. And I agree with the other posts which suggest that Camo is often a way to capture people's $. But the bottom line seems to be good technique trumps camo.
On the OP's original question on lens camo covers: I use them primarily to give a little protection against bumps, nicks and scratches. And the camo cover does also seem to get interesting responses from people. Curious that a $100 cover adds to the "respect" for a $5-6k lens, isn't it?
Most animals are color blind and most are far far more capable of detecting motion rather than pattern. Pattern and color recognition requires a very large brain - even some people have a little trouble with it. Animals relay on smell and sound much more than sight - in most cases. Camo makes zero difference in "being seen" I think. I'm a wilderness kinda-guy and that's what I think.
So, IMHO the only reasons for camo-coverings and attire is to hide from other humans, to remind you not to move around too much - set a stealthy mood, or to look cool. The camo-lens coverings probably keep dirt out as well. <shrug>
I agree with you on the worth or worthlessness of most camo. And if one looks at the camo that sells and what most camo is used for (paint-ball games), that would also seem to prove the point, at least for most people's use of camo.
But on the vision of animals: I'm not trying to start an argument or give a free lecture. But it seems you have lumped together the different parts and aspects of vision. And I see this done on web sites where they are trying to give a simple answer or trying to give easy to follow instructions. Actual vision is more complex as is how animals react to what they "see" in their environment.
Being able to "see" or sense a wavelength does not require anything more than that the certain protein be in the eye. No brain power required. The photo sensitive proteins are there in the eye. That is where the color signals are generated.
So the first part of vision is what wavelengths can be detected. That means what photo sensitive proteins are part of an animal's vision system. We have three photo sensitive proteins in our eyes. These each peak at different wavelengths. Basically red green blue.
Then the details in colors, objects, motion etc which we see result from the brain processing the data from the overlapping bell shaped sensitivity curves of these proteins. We do not react "sense" UV light frequencies because we have no light sensitive proteins for that wavelength range.
Bird, some reptiles and some insects have 4 light sensitve proteins. That "extra one" lets them "see" or rather sense wavelengths in the UV range. Additionally, some animals have slightly different photo sensitive proteins in their eyes that give them a slightly different set of wavelengths to "see". The proteins in Deer eyes display a some sensitivity in the UV range and also slightly into the near IR range.
The rest of vision is mostly what you do with "the data" the eye collects. And there are different parts of that also. As an example motion is processed differently from image recognition. Then there's the part of just how well one can actually see anything, visual acuity.
And on top of that is the issue of what an animal, bird etc is "programed" to respond to genetically and what they have learned to respond to. A frog can see a fly moving diagonally so much faster than we can because that is hardwired into their tiny brains. Do deer respond to motion, well absolutely. Is it important that they distinguish a blue jacket from a red jacket? Well no. It's enough to sense a difference add that with smell and sound info and then run. So one avoids moving and avoids "standing out" too much against the surroundings unless the animals are used to seeing people and are unafraid.
So in considering what animals can actually "see" it is important to separate the parts of vision. While that may not necessarily make you a better wildlife person, that is how vision works.
Also you might note that motion is very imprortant to all vision. We can actually not see a truly static image. We detect in our brains changes in the signals from the eye's proteins. Our eyes are constantly making micro movements so that we can get a varying signal for the brain to process.
Hope that clarifies this issue a little bit. And again I will say that with wildlife good technique trumps. But I would not wear an exposed shiny silver necklace or wearing a strobe light when looking to photograph wildlife.
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