TargetTalk

Why are there different colours ? I have seen a pale pink and yellow.
How does it help ?
Should one go for it ? What should be the selection criteria ?

Manish

Manish,

Depending on your eyes and the lighting on the range the different colors can improve or give the perception of improved contrast in the sight picture.

The pale pink you refer to also called a light rose supposedly stems from research done by the Soviets (now Russians) in the 1970s. I have never seen the translation of the paper that supposedly laid this out so it is hearsay.

I have seen pretty much all colors of the rainbow for sight inserts from just tinted to deeply colored. A large majority of shooters use clear with a modest following of the light rose tint and a few light grey.

There are various theories about which color to use when and why. For most ranges, a simple clear aperture is just fine.

Have not seen an upper level shooter using a boldly colored insert for many decades.

'Dude

Dude, I was watching one of the ISSF world cup finals onlne and I'm absolutely sure that I caught a glimpse of a yellow element in Martynov's foresight.

Personally, I use a custom made fluorescent pink perspex element (3.8mm) - I like it but it probably won't be to everyone's taste.

K.

Both Maik Eckhardt and Martynov frequently enough use yellow elements in the foresight. Martynov may even use one universally.

Leave it to Sergei to do things differently. I will try to take a closer look at his setup next time I am watching some prone. Likewise for Maik

Kenny, I think I might have a similar colored perspex element floating around in my parts bins. A day-glo pink. Years ago I fooled with it some but cannot say I thought it presented any particular advantage.

With regard to apertures, if you see something that interests you, go ahead and give it a try. In the grand scheme of things apertures are not too ridiculously expensive (well, if you buy the high end MEC/Centra they are) and easily switched back if you don't like what you see.

Personally I have a whole kit plus of the light rose Anschutz apertures. I just like them, adds a little contrast to everything (in my opinion) without changing the view. Never really got on with an adjustable aperture, tried one once, did not get on with it.

'Dude

I find that it really makes the white between the foresight ring and the aiming mark "pop out". I can get away with a smaller colored element compared with clear ones.
A neutral density grey might work just as well.
Too dark and you run the risk of aiming at the wrong target though (been there, done that...)

It may be an age thing...

K.

Dude I recall seeing the details of the research on element colours that you referred to in Yuryev's book back when I had a copy. I have mostly used the Anschutz rose pink elements over the years as back when I bought mine the complete set in the box was only available in the pink. I have to say I could never really see any difference between them on clear ones.

When shooting outdoors (and my 'indoor' club is outdoors too) I like to use a yellow filter in my rear sight. I find that helps the contrast a lot. I even use a yellow photographic filter on my scope sight for BR. The only place that I have found that I struggle with a coloured filter has been the Air Rifle club that I shoot at. The on target light level is so low that with the filter I cannot open the aperture far enough to get a useable sight picture.

Alan

Could anyone educate me on this subject? Most of my front sight elements are pink / rose. However since my diopter has different color filters, I ended up having a very dark and murky picture. If I set the diopter to neutral (no color), then the front pink element is OK, but not good enough to give me the contrast. If I replace the front element to transparent, then by choosing the diopter filter, it can do the job. Interestingly, yellow tend the be the best. So front sight transparent, rear diopter yellow is best for me right now.
Finally, I find that there is always NOT enough light. Even if I let my diopter filter to let light in for the maximum. This makes the color element, or the rear filter, not as effective.

Conradin,


Filters work by blocking particular light wavelengths. Practically this can enhance the contrast between the target and the sights, so it's easier to aim. Yellow is a common colour for filters as it is the broadest light spectrum, so you don't lose that much light, but it does enhance contrast.

It doesn't really matter where the filter is, front or back. The main difference is that a rearsight filter covers the whole sight picture, whereas a filter in the foresight does not. Chose whatever works for you. Obviously using two different colour filters, you block much more light.

I'd take a guess that Sergei Martynov uses a tinted foreesight because 1) it's less trouble than a rearsight filter (in terms of not mving, and keeping it clean), 2) his rearsight can be shorter (remember his head is a looonngg way forwards).

I use a third method; my prescription lens is tinted yellow.

If you are having trouble with light levels, add more lights, or increase the size of the rear aperture slightly.

Conradin,

If there is always not enough light you should probably look into additional lighting for your range. As Tim pointed out, filters always remove light. If you start with bare naked sights, no filters, no polarizers, no diopters and the target is dark, you need to add light. Although they can get a little warm, a 500W halogen shop light a few feet from the target will work wonders. It is impressive how much light you need to clearly see the target through peep sights.

Once you have enough light to work with then you can start tinkering with filters to get the sight picture and contrast that you like.

One other thing that should be added to this discussion, low light will often make the bull appear larger in the front aperture. I shoot on one range that is poorly lit and automatically step my front aperture up to compensate, before I ever start shooting.

Good Luck,
'Dude

justadude wrote:It is impressive how much light you need to clearly see the target through peep sights.

And how many shooters stick to the 1.1mm recommended iris size in poorly lit indoor ranges...

K.

KennyB wrote:

justadude wrote:It is impressive how much light you need to clearly see the target through peep sights.

And how many shooters stick to the 1.1mm recommended iris size in poorly lit indoor ranges...

K.

Interestingly, I find that I only need to open up the rearsight in certain outdoor light conditions - shooting slightly into the sun. It took me a few years to realise, although only rarely shooting in aforementioned conditions), that it was imperative to get the sight picture the same on all ranges. To be fair I initially couldn't because my my rear and foresights weren't adjustable.

So what I'm saying is that you should do what is required to get the same sight picture, which may, or may not mean opening or closing the sighting elements.

Rob.

The reason I said that was due to some experimentation two of us conducted a couple of months ago.
One of my clubmates was claiming that he was having difficulty aiming - I was a little sceptical but to test him out we set his rifle up indoors on a rest and I got him to aim the rifle while I monitored his POA with SCATT.
He was right - he was aiming all over the place.
Opening up the rearsight to 1.2mm tightened his aim up quite dramatically.

I've seen a similar thing myself while training at home with SCATT.
OK, the distance is much less (10m) so the reduction in depth of field isn't an issue with a larger peephole but there seems to be a threshold, below which you may think you're aiming in the middle but you're actually occasionally aiming in the 9 ring without realizing it. Opening up the rearsight appears to get rid of these poorly aimed shots.

That's my current thinking anyway.
YMMV.

Ken.

Eric U has discussed the opening of the rear aperture to accommodate poor lighting, now I have not gone back to look but I sort of recall him using numbers as high as 1.6 or 1.7, unusually large for the peep sight on a smallbore rifle.

Kenny, I would side with you, most shooters find something larger than the stock 1,1 mm rear aperture once they go adjustable. My air rifle hovers around 1,3 mm.

Rob is a big proponent of being able to get the sight picture the same from range to range and session to session. If you are shading the wind this is critical as you will need to know just how much off center the bull and front sight need to be to achieve a certain amount of change in shot placement. For other applications, probably not so critical. For me, poor lighting or a day with a crappy hold I will drop in a larger front aperture. Good light and a good hold, tighten it up with a smaller aperture. Recall, the front aperture should be at least large enough so that the bull will stay inside the ring during the best part of your hold. But this is getting wayyyy of topic.

'Dude

As stated above, filters can only remove light, so you end up with a dimmer image.

In all my research and experience in photography, I have only ever found justification for two colors: pale yellow (amber), and pale pink (vermillion).

The human eye is only sensitive to visible light. Shorter wavelength UV light, under about 400nm is not visible, but it still can irritate the retina, so you want to filter it out. Ordinary polycarbonate is naturally opaque to UV under about 390nm, which is why even cheap sunglasses can claim 99.99% of UV is blocked. However there is still that gap between 390 and 400nm, plus the 400nm is not a hard cutoff. So there is a slight benefit of filtering out a little more of the UV to get the last bit.

UV is right next to blue in the spectrum. Since yellow is the opposite of blue, a yellow filter exactly blocks blue and lets yellow pass. So by adding yellow tint, you filter out UV and a slight amount of blue. Eliminating the UV wash on the eye will improve contrast.

You can see here the light transmission through clear polycarbonate goes from zero to almost 100% right at 400nm.



Amber polycarbonate does not start letting through light till between 400 and 500nm



So bottom line is that amber gets rid of irritating UV and improves contrast.

The other color that has merit is pink. This is because red is the opposite of green. So if you want to improve contrast against a green background, you want to remove green, so anything green looks black, while anything red looks as bright as possible. This is an advantage for hunters, shooting against a foliage background, or maybe trap shooters. Not likely to do much for target shooting.

The other thing to consider is personal preference. I do not know enough about the anatomy of the eye or possible differences between individuals that I can discount that some people simply prefer a color.

Art

ShootingSight wrote:As stated above, filters can only remove light, so you end up with a dimmer image.

In all my research and experience in photography, I have only ever found justification for two colors: pale yellow (amber), and pale pink (vermillion).<snip>

The other thing to consider is personal preference. I do not know enough about the anatomy of the eye or possible differences between individuals that I can discount that some people simply prefer a color.

Art

I think your last point is more powerful than the others in many cases. Shooting is not only a technical discipline, it's also an artistic one. By that I mean it needs to feel right as well as work technically.

I only use a light brown / amber filter and then only in pistol in very bright conditions, that cuts out the stray light and improves contrast between the 'white' and the bull - as of course the white isn't white, it's a very light sandy brown.

A lot of pistol shooters also swear by the rose pink lenses. This cuts down the light and should improve contrast slightly, but perhaps more importantly it gives a warming feeling to the image - a bit like the red room or blue room thing.

Bottom line is to try different filters and see what work for you, but remember some will work well in overcast conditions, others better in bright sunlight.

Rob.

ShootingSight wrote: The other thing to consider is personal preference. I do not know enough about the anatomy of the eye or possible differences between individuals that I can discount that some people simply prefer a color.

Art

Just to add to this - my left eye is brown and my right eye is about 2/3 brown and 1/3 blue. The colour perception between my eyes is slightly different with the right eye making everything appear "warmer" or slightly more yellow than the left.
Maybe everyone experiences this but I've always put this down to my mutant eyes.

The reason I like the coloured foresight elements is because it de-emphasizes what is outside the ring and so accentuates what is inside the ring.
For me, the important stuff is inside the ring and the stuff outside the ring is just a distraction.

YMMV.
K.

Two good points above:

Rob mentions overcast. Water vapor in the clouds blocks visible light, but it does not block as much of the invisible UV. However your pupils dilate only based on visible light.

So you can go outside on a very overcast day when it looks to be dim. Your eyes will dilate and get big, to let in more light. However since only the visible light is diminaished, the UV component is still blasting in. When your eyes dilate, they let in way too much UV, and you find your eyes hurting so much that you need to squint. So the problem of excess UV is made worse in overcast conditions.

The other point that I did not get was the notion of a colored front iris. The OP's message talking of 'insert' made me think 'filter' which covers the entire image.

However either iris or glare shields are excellent - I make and sell them for 30mm sights. I make glare shields that have an opening that falls between the ID and the OD of the iris, so you use them in addition to an adjustable iris. I also make iris inserts that are pre-drilled with a chamfer to an exact diameter, so they replace the iris.

In both cases, you are looking at a black bull, surrounded by a white ring, and then you have a reduced brightness exterior. I make grey, brown, and amber. In this case, since you are not sighting through the colored portion, all you care about is the % visible light transmission, to reduce the background glare to a non-distracting level.