THE term ‘lowlight shooting’ generally brings to mind hunting at twilight, or in deep forest, or night culling, and the specialised sighting equipment used for this. But lowlight conditions are not solely ambient. Though you may not be conscious of it, once you get past the age of 40 or so, the world in general becomes a darker place, and grows progressively darker the older you get.
For a very enlightening (pardon) exercise, go online to https://www.caa.ca/driving-safely/senior-drivers/tools. This brings up a photo of a street scene. Above it are four light-bulb icons. Click on each light-bulb in turn from left to right, and the photo changes to show how that very same scene looks to people of 20, 40, 60 and 80 years of age respectively. Note: this is a daylight scene. In twilight, the differences are more pronounced, progressively appearing much darker to older eyes. It’s a real… well… eye-opener.
Vision comes down to little more than light. Many people have the notion that vision travels from your eye to an object or scene – probably because we talk that way: “My eyes can’t see that far”. But no, it’s the other way around – vision is reflected of light your pupil lets in. Dave Westerhout, optometrist, hunter and one-time world champion practical pistol shooter, says older people often ask him for stronger reading glasses to read fine print; he tells them they don’t need stronger glasses, only a stronger reading lamp.
