First up yes I’m a camo nerd. Metal Gear Solid 3 awakened something in me! Anyway every now and then I take different camo patterns into the woods and take photos as a reference to help people choose what works best for them. This one, Pencott Wildwood looks way too brown in most photos. Check it out!
But with the selfie cam it looks a lot closer to how it does in person
Maybe it’s just the phone software that’s only used in the main camera? I’ve messed with some of the settings with no luck. Here’s a closer view of the pattern to show you what it’s like up close
Any theories?
- phone cameras generally default to auto white balance which is good for snapshots, not so good for color accuracy
- trying to get raw files out of phone cameras is not completely impossible, but the images are almost always processed into JPEGs
- the main camera is going to boost saturation and contrast (make your image “pop”)
- selfie camera is going to focus on “flesh tones”, so less saturation boost (or you look sunburnt) and less contrast boost (smooth out wrinkles and acne)
- if you really want to focus on color accuracy over perceptual color, get hold of a gray card or color checker and plan on doing post-processing in something like Lightroom, Darktable, digiKam, RawTherapee or the like
Thanks for the rundown! I tried to adjust all the settings to get a basic unenhanced image but I understand that my use case isn’t what a lot of cell phone cameras do.
Good news is most of the time I don’t take photos with my phone but a dedicated camera so I’m curious to see if that has similar results or not
Could be the rear camera having a higher dynamic range and when it gets processed down to a lower dynamic range the extra information presents as higher contrast? Contrast is the enemy of camo I imagine. Just guessing, though.
My phone camera has the option to save and view the raw file as well as the processed jpeg, and when you do that you can see that the software is doing a lot of work by default to sharpen and add contrast and color enhancement. My guess is the selfie camera may be tuned to reduce redness in particular to smooth skin tones? Or it’s just a smaller sensor not collecting as much color info to begin with.
I love that there’s such a thing as real camo nerds. I’ve been fascinated with them as well. There’s an endless variety of patterns and everyone’s got their own theories as to what works best in what setting.
If you’re not familiar, one great YouTube channel that you might like is Uniform History. (And do recommend me some others as well if you know of any)
https://youtube.com/@uniformhistory?si=zILGWSasuDwXr5KY
Personally, I love a good tiger stripe variety, but I’m also quite fond of ACU digital. Own a few items with it. And for a nice classic: gotta love chocolate chip for that early 90’s Desert Storm vibe.
Oh yeah I’ve seen bits and pieces of those videos! I found them at work and couldn’t watch them completely. I’ve been meaning to get back to them so thanks for the reminder!
Tiger stripe may not be the most effective but it’s undeniably a vibe! I like the one airsoft camo that changes the black to dark brown. It seems to work a lot better in a wider variety of areas.
I’m not a fan of ACU digital because it makes me think of how bad the army messed up and what could have been. I’ve dyed some ABU sets green and it makes a better late spring/summer pattern than it has any right to.
As a civilian, thankfully I get to enjoy camo stuff without the risk of getting shot at. So I’m rocking my tiger stripe boonie and G-Shock for sure.
The digital UCP definitely is an unloved pattern by people who did get shot at. Which is why it’s kind of surprising to me that it’s one of those patterns that frequently pops up on camo items for civilian use. I frequently see items for sale with it. Much more than other, actual military patterns.
Maybe because it actually scales down to where you can use it on say, a Spyderco pocket knife, Zippo or wallet. Where other patterns wouldn’t work quite as well because you’d need to scale them down to really show a pattern. My Spyderco Military, Para 3 and digital Boonie are all in the ‘same scale’ for example, despite a large difference in size of the overall item.
I’d love it if Spyderco did different camos like a nice tiger stripe. Heck, I wanted an actual tiger stripe Spyderco so badly, I commissioned a set of unique scales for it. Not really camo, definitely unique :D
