(June 1, 2015 at 12:50 am)SteelCurtain Wrote: My thoughts on this is that reflectors are really good at making low levels of light visible against non-reflective material. But just like a reflective vest doesn't look reflective in the daytime, when you shine a bright light at it and the surrounding areas, it washes out just the same. I'd bet that there's something just reflective enough behind you to throw some light from your phone's screen back onto the reflectors, visible in your periphery.
But that's just a spitball.
That's a good spitball. I didn't think about maybe something behind me scattering light, but I did shine my phone on the low slanted white ceiling in my room, and still couldn't see the vest. The vest was to the left of me and the ceiling was to the right. So maybe something to do with the orientation of the light source, eyes, vest, and scattering surface may have something to do with it.
What it seemed like was going on was that shining light into my eyes somehow magnified the reflective vest. Another idea could be that when you shine light into your eyes, the surrounding area appears to get darker, so perhaps I somehow darkened everything, but the vest, making it suddenly visible.
