Microcrystalline Wax Techniques?

[Frank Ladner]

Oscar: I still hold to Microwax being the best static solution. Working with it is a bit more difficult (thickness is key. Too thin = hotspots, too thick = heavy diffusion/softness), as many of us know, but it brings some nice rewards.

I've played with a bunch of variations (ground plastic, glass, rotating, vibrating, etc...) and here are my opinions:

Best static solution: Microcrystalline Wax

Best moving solution: Glass ground with larger grit (ie. WAO 500), spinning (with axis below bottom of incoming lens) (ie. like the old spinning plastic CD models)

Why larger grit? This greatly cuts back on hotspot/transparency and you get a bright image. Since the entire glass rotates past the lens, grain is not a problem.

Everything's a tradeoff, though. If you want a compact adaptor, oscillating/vibrating would be the way to go, HOWEVER even in vibrating adaptors you can still see soft grain due to the grain moving in tight circles - you get a larger 'ghost' type blur of the grain)...so you have to use a lower shutter speed.

Just my observations and conclusions based on a few years of following the homemade 35mm adapter progress.

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

The common understanding to avoiding grain is that you leave the SLR iris open fully and use an ND filter or close the iris in the camera itself if there's too much light.

No. Leaving the iris open all the time creates too shallow a depth of field for those of us with really shallow lenses. It's all a balance between setting the SLR aperture to get the depth of field you want, setting the camera's iris to what you want, and using ND's.

[Wayne Kinney]

Exactly Bill,

I feel these adapters should be used to allow you to shoot with 35mm lenses as if your using a real film camera. Do you leave the aperture open the whole time with a film camera? NO. You set the aperture to give the desired DOF for the type of shot your trying to create. Obviously you need more light for any giving shooting situation with a camcorder then a film camera with the SLR stopped down, but the point is that the creative freedom is there. This was 1 reason I designed the SG35 to be able to stop down the SLR lens.

[Ben Winter]

Wayne, way to be hypocritical!
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...695#post356695

Originally posted by Wayne Kinney:
Graham,
I beleive this to work, but I think its best to keep the SLR aperture open, and adjusting the exposure of the image with the camcorders aperture.

Wayne.

Originally posted by Ben Winter:
Actually I was referring to if someone wanted to deepen the DOF using aperture control. But, of course, we're all in this for shallow DOF, so why not...

And Bill even agreed with you! Bloody lot of good my comments did.

Phooey ;)

[Wayne Kinney]

Yeah your right Ben

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

but then someone commented on how closing the iris would negate the purpose of the adapter in the first place.

This is what it boils down to. If you want shallow DOF thn fine, but the real opportunity these adapters brings to the DV filmmaker is to use the 35mm lenses properly in order to tell his/her story, not to have every shot with completely shallow DOF. Also, try getting a nice wide shot, like with a 24mm lens, with the same look or feel WITHOUT the 35mm adapter, and just with a wide angle adapter on the camcorder. Not the same.

So i guess what im saying is lets stop with the shallow DOF thing, as there are other benifits of the adapter, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

Graham,
I beleive this to work, but I think its best to keep the SLR aperture open, and adjusting the exposure of the image with the camcorders aperture.

Wayne

The above was emphasising the freedom you can get that not even a film camera can do (without ND filters) is to adjust the amount of light without effecting DOF.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

In my experience, everything that filters the amount of light causes the grain to be more visible (I guess it gives more contrast and sharpness on the GG)
So I mean all three options: narrower aperture on the adapter, narrower iris on the camcorder, ánd also a nd filter.
Anyway, the grain is not too visible, something like this (shot with a lot of bright and direct sunlight)

I'll do some more tests with filters though, but my first results weren't better than a smaller aperture.

[Ben Winter]

I like the grainy look somewhat. I think 35mm adapters don't have to exactly reproduce a film look, just a look that affects the audience emotionally in a similar way than film.

[Bill Porter]

I've seen what you mean, Oscar, but one thing I notice that hasn't been mentioned a lot is that stopping down the camcorder, thereby increasing its depth of field (which is on the GG), can give a distinctly different effect than reducing incoming light by either ND's or the 35mm lens' iris.

What I wonder is...

We all see this crap under a microscope, so to speak. If we were to show our projects in the intended venues - NTSC tv set in front of the family; PAL projector on a 100" screen; small screen movie theater at a film festival, etc. - what would the audience notice?
"Gosh that thing had this weird haze." ?
"Was your camera's lens dirty?" ?
"It looked kinda cool." ?
"Howcome it didn't look like video?" ?

Would the grain from the GG of our static adapters really detract from the movie?

We can hypothesize all we want but I want to hear about real world responses from non-dvinfo.net people. Should be interesting!

[Dan Diaconu]

Originally Posted by Bill Porter

We all see this crap under a microscope, so to speak. If we were to show our projects in the intended venues - NTSC tv set in front of the family; PAL projector on a 100" screen; small screen movie theater at a film festival, etc. - what would the audience notice?

Not unless they are sleeping or wearing "black glasses"! What we all see "under the microscope" gets enlarged and becomes obvious for all on larger screens/displays. How much and what they figure out of it.... ?no idea.... but the feeling of looking at "a screen" definitely impacts negative with the illusion of watching something real. (creates an artificial barrier to letting go reality and getting into the story, imo) Try it! Take the DVD in a plasma/projector retail, check reactions and post back. We know what we want and seek, but they don’t. It is “their opinion” that counts not ours (imo, lol)

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Actually, I made a working LCD/OH projector with high resolution. With the first tests I projected some older Paraffin wax footage, which shows a soft grain all over the image. I must say, someone who doesn't know what he's looking at, will have to be pointed out what you mean with 'grain'. At first it just looks as if it's the structure of the projection screen.

Further tests will of course be done with microwax clips, which is at least 2x better.

[Dan Diaconu]

Originally Posted by Oscar Spier

At first it just looks as if it's the structure of the projection screen.

True!
I had in mind the look of "grain" as in static Beattie (crisp points) vs a soft veil -if any-for microwax.

[Matt Stedeford]

My first post! :)

Been reading up on the agus35 and all these 35mm adapters which have exploded since then, it's quite exciting.

Originally Posted by Oscar Spier

Further tests will of course be done with microwax clips, which is at least 2x better.

Hi Oscar, I've read your method for your microwax 35mm adapter. How do you get all the lenses in your setup to stick together? (58mm lens, tube, condenser1, wax gg, condenser2) I'm assuming they don't all screw on together perfectly?

Thanks

Matt

[Oscar Spierenburg]

It comes down to finding tubes and rings that will fit more or less onto each other. For my latest version I used (hard)PVC pipes and a tube with a lens mount from a macro ring that came with the lens. The hardest part is to fine adjust the distance of the focal plane so that it is exactly set to infinity.
The easiest way of positioning everything is sticking it all together with a hot glue gun. But every leave it like that. I always put some epoxy glue on all joints.

[Dave Kerry]

Hi everyone!!

I have taken up the wax messmaking hobby (big thanks to everyone for their tips etc.) what do your waxes look like in their original form, I have a big block of microwax but I couldnt say its white, its slighty yellowish in colour, is this normal/ok? or does everyone else use bleached wax? im figuring a white balance will fix the minor colour change. I have made 3 screens so far using glass from cheep picture frames and 1 looks ok just a streak on one side but I think ill be able to offset the image to avoid that area. also does it make a lot of difference using glass plates as opposed to actual lenses?

and is a macro lens necessary if i can focus on the screen without it?

many many thanks for all the work everyone has done :D ,
dave

[Ben Winter]

At that thickness the color of the wax has little impact, I believe.