Matthew

It's best you don't go near your CD with sandpaper or any other paper for that matter if you are going to rub it across your disk. Okay you will get an opaque surface on one face of the disk but the performance will be less than it need be for the same amount of resources and sweat.

You need pits, not scratches on your disk.

The best result will be with a fine aluminium oxide powder of 300 grade, mixed with water and rubbing your disk in very very small circles (quarter inch or less if you can do it) on a very clean glass sheet. This is done without pressing on the disk but allowing the powder to do its work by rolling along under the disk and stamping pits in it, not fixing to a lower surface and then drawing long scratches across the disk. It takes a long time as high edges on the disk rim and centre have to be worn down first. The fine powder may not be readily available to you.

If you use paper, then anything courser than 600 grade will be a waste of time. Preferably you should place your disk facedown on a clean surface, on a clean piece of thin soft cloth.

Place your 600 grade paper face down on your disk. Wet and dry silicon carbide paper is best as pieces are less likely to come off and get on the clear side of your disk and scratch it whilst you work.

Hold the paper from moving across the disk and use a hard round ended object about the size of a pen or pencil and scrub this firmly back and forth across the paper to make the grit press pits into the disk surface. You can automate this process a little by finding an old ball bearing race at your local auto shop or wrecker, holding the centre and using the outer race as a roller. Doing it this way will also save premature wear on the back of the wet and dry paper. You'll need to tilt your wheel slightly so high local pressures occur on the paper. Lift your paper off often, move it slghtly and put it on the disk again. Don't allow it to rub. When you first take a peek at your disk, it will be covered with all these criss-cross wheel marks. You've just got to keep going until the whole of the disk surface has been pressed. Be patient. It will take about two hours to do properly. You'll get good light transmission but possibly some centre hot spot in your image depending how big an area of the disk image you use for your frame.

If you've get plenty of clear disks to waste with experiments, you could try automotive paint cutting compound in water on a sheet of glass and using it like the aluminium oxide. I don't think it will be graded well enough and there may be odd scratches from large particles.

If you end up with a disk which is too opaque, washing it first to get rid of any pieces of scratchy grit or dirt, then back-polishing it on a piece of flannel cloth will restore some light transmission. You can do this with a sanded disk but the scratches remain and flare in the imag around strong highlights is likely.

thanks a lot that is actually a really big help because i wasn't getting the greatest quality picture the other way.
but, can i get some instructions on how to put the entire device together, like i said before maybe it was posted somewhere and i missed it but if someone could explain that or tell me what page that particular peice of info was on i would be much obliged.

Matthew.

If you go back to the beginning of this series there are images to be found of the early versions. Chris the webmaster has also created a condensed version of this thread.

There's a great variety of versions of the Agus. The original and simplest is Agus Casse's version which uses a bulk CD-R disk retail container as an enclosure for the groundglass disk which is a clear spacer from a retail pack of 25 CD-R disks.

An image comes in through a lens on front and appears on a groundglass surface, in his case a clear compact disk made opaque by sanding. This image is upside down and has to be inverted in post or made to appear the right way up by using the camcorder upside down. The image on the disk will be defected by having fixed marks or grain on it. To eliminate this defect the disk is spun so that the image remains constant but the surface texture moves past the image plane faster than the camcorder can resolve it unless high shutter setting are used. To spin it most people have been gutting dead CD players to get a motor and spindle and glueing their disks to the spindle. The voltages applied have been between 1.5v and 9v. I found 3v adequate. There's no rule on this as operating voltages across all the CD player designs are too many to even try to collate. Similar Mabuchi style DC motors can be found in some hobby shops and they are labelled for 1v to 9v.

I have used the term non-inverting Agus35 for this version but there may be other tags for it.

Results from this version can be comparable in quality to the P+S Technik Mini35 with a good SLR lens used and best quality imposed on the dressing of the groundglass CD.

On front is a mount for a SLR 35mm still camera lens of personal choice. The mounts may come from a variety of sources, wrecked cameras or adaptors or a person might make one's own. The still camera lens which I shall call the prime lens has to be positioned so that it is the same distance from the disk as it would be from the film in the SLR camera it came from. This distance can be found by measuring a camera from the mount face of its lens to a O mark with a line through it on top of bottom of the camera, which delineates the focal plane inside the camera (where the film is).

The camcorder sees the image on the disk.

Most camcorders will not be able to see the image on the disk unless some sort of close-up lens or macro lens is used. See Brett Erskines posts on this subject. Various macro lenses suited to individual camcorders maty be used. I have used a telescope eyepiece so that I could get my camcorder within 45mm of the disk image so I could close-couple the Agus for handlholding and general tidyness. The downside is great difficulty in controlling distortion of the image but it can be done. The general workable range of macro lenses seems to be in the region between 7+ to 10+. This places the CD disk image between approx 3" and 5.5" away from the camcorder.

When an erecting version (image right way up version) of the Agus is made using mirrors or prisms in the disk image to camcorder stages, then 4+ to 5+ seems to be ideal macro lens power as the prisms and mirrors add length to the image path while maintaining a short distance between the disk image and the camcorder. The erecting versions are still being developed.

The original CD case version will not lend itself to convenient adaptation to an erecting version. In keeping with the original objective of low cost and absolute simplicity, it is probably not appropriate to want to change this.

Another version which has been made in project boxes or homemade box style enclosures tagged Agus55 will more conveniently facilitate inclusion of an erecting system once it has been sorted.

If you want a quick and acceptable result use the original Agus35 version. If you want something more robust use the Agus55 version. A detailed how-to on this version can be found at

http://ideaspora.net/agus35/

You can find a more or less evolutionary history of my own project in pictures at www.dvinfo.net/media/hart

Start from the earliest dates and you'll get a general idea of where I went with it. The files agus1.jpg to agus3.jpg give an idea of where the prime lens should sit relative to the disk and what the camcorder sees. I have revised the disc motor mount method since this version as posted but have not yet made new pics of it. To enable backfocus adjustment for the prime lens I recommend the motor mount be a flat plate of some kind, fixed to the front of the Agus with three small screws/bolts fastened through into the case then a spring, then the plate, then another nut on the bolt and maybe a locknut on top again although the spring pressure should be enought to lock the first nut. This enables accurate backfocus adjustment.

Furthur to above, I have just received an email from Hiro at Ohara Glass. They are able to supply unfinished cut optical glass disks of 120mm in 1.3mm thickness. These have an opaque finish all over. I am going to handfinish the groundglass finish on the back myself.

I shall have a local optical glass shop which normally does spectacles do the polish on the smooth front face. The accurately centered 15mm holes remain a problem. No one here in WA I have contacted so far can do it. Hiro is looking at getting it accurately done in Japan. This would yield a glass replica of a CD disk.

I am going to order 10 disks. I am probably going to go through one or two before I get mine right. If anyone else is interested in getting some unfinished disks perhaps you might consider posting a note here. On such a small run there won't be any economies of scale but it may be helpful for there to be only one production run of the centreholed unfinished disks. (With Agus Casse's permission they might be called Agusdisks.)

Bob-
Besides the static ground glass option, you should know that the latest version of the P+S Technik mini35 no longer ROTATES the ground glass because it caused problems with the visual quality of the video. Instead they now rotate the ground glass in place in a small circular motion. That way all of the grain in the ground glass is moving at the same exact speed. Doing it this way also doesnt require you to drill a hole perfectly in the center and makes the overall adapter much much smaller.

-B

ie: the Pro35

Brett.

An orbiting groundglass? - Interesting.

I guess they ran into the same problems we have, ie., run-out of the disk which could be expected to occur in time and use, gyroscopic stress on the groundglass causing momentary soft shifts in backfocus and relay focus when the appliance is agitated. A little movement is very obvious especially in close coupling like my monster.

An orbiting groundglass would be one hell of a lot smaller than our CD-Rs and bullet proof for sudden movements of the camera.

To be any good it would have to have three cranks and a frame around the glass. Slides or rockers would cause an irregular orbit, tendency towards wear and noise. The orbiting groundlgass would need to be in a sealed enclosure or surely there would be a screen-full of faint fuzzy "O's".

For most of us, it may not a convenient option as my understanding of the principle would require at least seven extra parts, all mounted in precise relationship along with some smart dynamic balancing. I'm talking 0.005"? precision or maybe better and that is way out of the hacksaw and gluegun league which is my comfort zone. However the entrails of an orbital sander could show some promise. Come to think of it, the Italian R.U.P.E.S. "Super Stork" sander which was an industry favorite for many years, used a floating platen AND a clever diapragm sleeve fastened by two fine hose clips to replace three or more idler cranks. Alignment was maintained by a very robust crank and 4 x ballbearing set.

C-l-e-v-e-r. I'll wager P+S Technik have gone there. Like the R.U.P.E.S. sander, provided the diaphragm sleeve is not ruptured, no dust gets in, only one single crank is required and the diapragm keeps it relatively quiet.

As you might guess this has been an un-edited stream of consiousness analysis. Two large bottle caps, postage stamp sized groundglass inside one, crankshaft out of model airplane engine, piece of bicycle tube, two hose clamps and you are in business. Actually it would be much more complicated than that and still require engineering level precision to rig.

(So please don't be going out there to rat your little brother's radiocontrol model airplane for the crank out its Supertiger or OS Max engine.)

Agus Website
 

Did Agus ending making that website tutorial.

If so where is it.

Also does te lens have to go up to f1.8

Bob-
I abandoned the idea early on due to two things: 1) the level of absolute persion needed to create the mounts and mechanics and then properly counter balance such a device. 2)Advances in the quality of ground glass to the point of being able to use it statically.

If you still want to follow my first design I would try and find some piece of equipment out there (like you mentioned) that already has the basic hardware your looking for otherwise you'll be going nutts trying to get it right...even with the right tools.

Good luck.

BTW why are you choosing to still move the ground glass?

Brett.

Why the moving groundglass? I thought fixed groundglass was fine too. So far with my experimentation, a moving groundglass of identical material seems to provide a more uniform image and perhaps a very small superior low light performance.

With our larger disks, the variation between inner and outer surface speeds and the arc angle number across the enture frame is less.

I'm also rolling my own as much as I can and there are ability limits. W.A. is also on the fag end of the just-in-time supply line and some commodities and services have been down-inventoried out of the state. Transport is good however.

For reason of weight, a thin glass disk will run truer than a CD-R. There's also some interesting weird stuff you can do with a 180 degree or 2 x 90 degree paper shutter glued onto the disk and a speed controller on the motor.

I may well come back to the fixed groundglass as the whole thing is a lot more compact but it would require a complete rebuild of what I have done so far.

Well if you continue you can make a CD run more smoothly by having the outer edge run inside of the groove of outside of bearing.

Brett.

What type bearing are you referring to? The most compact ballraces I have run into are router tips or salvage out of till scanner mirror or VCR drum motors. Do some of these have an external circlip groove in them. Whichever, it would have to be in good condition otherwise the operating noise would be cruelbad loud with severe loading on any direct drive motor. I'm not too sure how good the glass disks would be in this circumstance. Plastics are largely self lubing but I can see edge spalling and dust being a problem straight up with glass.

Try taking a common grease filled bearing found in rollerblades and skateboards and put it into a core that has some type of groove. Mount the bearing to the adapter's housing and your set. If I was going this route I would probably have three or four of these.

Brett. Thanks for the clue.

Agus35 for xl1s
 

so i just put together and have a running version of the Agus35 for my xl1s. i had always envisioned it being a little different in design from the original Agus35 in that instead of a 30pack CD spindle, i used a portable CD player and basically cut a 2 inch diameter hole in it and connected via PVC pipe. it's similiar to taking a shotgun and blowing a hole clean through the unit at one corner. i degutted the electronic parts, placed a lcd light on it to make sure i knew if was running if i forgot to turn it off. i picked up a 2 sheets of 5x6 frosted glass (1.7mm thickness) from Edmunds Optical, sanded at roughly 220 grit, for $15 bucks each. i paid a stain glass cutter $10 to cut it into an a perfect shape of a CD (she broke one in her first attempt) and popped it in the CDplayer and it was perfectly balanced. i put two high powered double AA batteries in and it runs whisper quiet, infact so quiet have to check if it's on or not all the time. i didn't put a on/off switch on it as i wanted to test it out. i support it with some 15mm rails i bought for it. as for the image reversing, i just flip the eye viewer and it is right-sided easily. there are just two things i need to improve, one is that the image is still on the darker side, and a bit fuzzy, yellow, halo-ish-as, i believe, the gg is not fine enough, so i am ordering some 600grit aluminum oxide to improve the opticals and the next is getting a slightly wider "relay" lens. the current one i have is a 55mm, nikkor f1.2. i believe it's a little too narrow for what i am doing and i would like to pick up more of the gg image. I am using a 50mm f2 lens for the primary.

Would you reccommend i get a Macro type lens as my Nikkor isn't one, just a standard, and I think that might be a problem. I also have a +10 close-up lens in front of my "relay" lens. I also have a fresnel lens in front of the gg, concentric rings facing the gg. would you think i need to put that after the gg?

i'll also post some nice schematics in the next day or so to show how i did it.

I am also working on a Aldu35 Static verison for the XL1s. But, right now i'm interested in brightening up my image and trying to refine and test. Any thoughts would be appreciated...

-D

Check out the other threads on this subject for more up to date info in the designs. For one you need to get rid of that fresnel and relace it with a codenser lens. Another thing you might want to try is reverse mounting your 50mm relay lens (they have ready made mounts for this purpose) because it turns it into a +20 achromat diopter. You wont need your screw on macro then. Btw condenser goes between GG and relay lens with the curve side of the condenser facing the relay lens. Let me know how it works for you.

-B

Once you dress that glass with the finer aluminium oxide things should look better. You are going to have to spend a lot of time rubbing it on the sheet of glass with the powder in water. It will look smoother pretty quick but the larger pits and scratches from the 200 will have to be worn down completely and that will take much longer, say about two hours.

Yellow?? Fresnel maybe or one or another of your lenses may have a separating composite element in it. I had an Angenieux 10 x 150 do that to me. Put each lens up against the light to see if there are any roadmaps coming in from the rim or edge discoloration. I think the frensel can go back to being a reading glass.

I suspect you won't be getting runout on the disk because of the mass. Run-out of itself will not cause you excessive grief unless it is itself excessive. But it will cause a small softening of the image through moving it minutely in an orbital motion. Run your cam and the Agus, then shut the disk motor off. As the motor spools down you will see the image walk slightly if the run out is too much. Another thing which will cause this effect is if the two surfaces of the glass disk itself are not flat and parallel to each other. When you dress your groundglass, take very special care not to put pressure on it in case you break it or wear it away unevenly. A perfectly flat block with the groundglass stuck to it would be the ultimate way to go however getting it off without breaking will be a challenge. The telescope makers use a special pitch (black tar stuff) and great care when applying it so as not to break the glass with heat stress. To get the glass off they simply cool the whole thing in a chiller. The pitch goes hard and cracks off the glass.

I have received an email reply from Hiro at Ohara Glass which reads as follows :-

""
Dear Mr. Bob Hart;

I am finally ready to submit my quotation for 10pcs of S-BSL7 D120.0 - 15.0 X 1.2T disks as follows:

1. Glass Type = Ohara S-BSL7 General Optical Properties as per Ohara Catalog Standard

2. Outer Diameter = 120.0 +/-0.2 (mm)
3. Inner Diameter = 15.0 +/-0.2 (mm)
4. Concentricity between OD and ID = 8 micron meter or less
5. Thickness = 1.2mm +0/-0.3 (mm)
6. Surface condition = Ground

Our price for quantity 10pcs is F.O.B. Japan JPY3,400.- / pc F.O.B. stands for " Free on Board ". This means the price includes the cost of the product itself and the cost for clearing customs in Japan. Therefore the consignee ( customer ) needs to pay international transportation fee. The reason why we offer F.O.B. price is it we have no idea how the consignee wants to transfer the goods ( by ocean-ship, or air-freight, or postal parcel ). If you have a specific requirement for transportation method, we can quote our price which includes all such costs and you have only to receive the goods at your door. Please let me know how you want us to ship the goods. Does my explanation help you understand?

Lead-time = 4 weeks after receiving Payment by remittance


I look forward to serving you soon.

Best regards;

Hiro Tsuruta, Ohara Inc.
""
END OF QUOTE.


Note that these optical grade glass disks are only ground finished on all surfaces and would require dressing with the finer aluminium oxide on one surface for groundglass finish and full polish on the other.

Bob's glass discs
 

Bob it seems to me like grinding one side of the glass disk back to completely clear and perfectly flat again is not going to be a easy task. Besides the time it would take to do that - you would also need to have a perfectly flat gring surface AND the pressure pushing down on the disk would also have to be perfectly even from edge to center. If you dont your going to have a slight bit of optical distortion when looking thru the disks. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have this final step done commercially as well somewhere.

-B

Brett.

You are quite correct. I have a local optical eyeglasses outfit will be doing that part for me.

To anyone.

Can anyone advise me of the copyright legalities in the US of a small movie or segment which promotes a couple of performers who do R & B covers mainly at pub gigs.

There are two issues, the rights of original composers over the portions of their works which have been performed and also protection of the mechanical and music rights of the two performers of their own originals.

They are not going to fussed over the mechanical rights of a live performance but their original works have not been released in the US and are not protected.

I ask as I have a hasty five minute video they needed urgently compiled from their own archive footage, - VHS video in extremely low light and some recent footage shot direct into PD150 and also via the non-inverting AGUS35.

Whilst I would like to post the footage here for interest of AGUS constructors, I don't want to expose the performers to suit in the US or compromise their viability if they tour there and find their work has been copyrighted by some opportunist.

They do pay some sort of tribute fee here in Australia for performances at paying gigs but how this works in the US with uncontrolled distribution via the web is unknown to me.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I got news for all of you hoping to be able to use their XL-1 for this projekt.
I'm in contact with some German optical companies trying to find a way how to use a small powerfull lens with high luminous intensity. It is planned to capture the full 36mm width of 35mm stillcamera format.
The second task is to use a anamorphotic pre lens to project the 16:9 Image on the whole CCD in 4:3 to use the full resolution of your Canon XL-1.

count me in...
 

Dietmar, I am refining my xl1 version of the adapter and have come to some technical roadblocks. While these types of adapters seem to do well with standard DVs, xl1 issues pertain to FOV. Feel free to contact me offline if i can be of assitance, dinor@hotmail.com...

-D

I should be able to prototype my relay lens design (*should* be good for ~20mm f2.0) for the XL1 today, I'll report back if it's performance is note-worthy.

Bob, what little I know is this:

When your performers are performing tunes written by other people, the issue is one for the publishers of the written composition. As your artists are producing a completely new 'recording' of the tune, they are not infringing on the copyright of the original sound recording - only the written composition. Most US artists are registered with either ASCAP or BMI who monitor and pay royalties for 'performances' of composed pieces. A performance doesn't necessarily mean a 'live' performance, and includes radio and video airplay as well.

Typically, nightclubs pay a 'blanket license' to ASCAP or BMI or both, which is a flat fee, covering them to have any musician perform any tune in their place. Some clubs may not pay such a fee and just hope to slip through unnoticed. I also suspect that blanket licenses don't cover recording made in such a place and then subsequently broadcast elsewhere.

There are ASCAP and BMI spies out there (at least there were in the '80s when I knew one), who report performances of ASCAP/BMI tunes that they've come across in local places looking for infringement.

As far as your artists' rights, its really up to them to protect themselves, by copyrighting both their original music and the sound recordings they've made of that music. If they were registered with ASCAP or BMI, they would then also be up for the same royalty payments for performances of their music as other artists.

If you're wanting to play this by the law, you might contact someone at ASCAP or BMI here in the states (don't have the web addresses handy) and request some information on your dilemma. I'm sure they'd be quite interested in accommodating someone who obviously is interested in trying to do it 'the right way'. Quite frankly, I'm unsure of the strictness of enforcement, or whether your limited use might just be "ok" - better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Usual disclaimers apply: I'm not a rep for either of these agencies - don't hold copyrights myself, and this knowledge is passed on to me by people who have had dealings with the agencies in the past. Your best source of information will be from the agencies themselves.... I'm just throwing out what my current understanding is...

(this is probably deserving of a separate thread, as it has nothing to do with with the adapter :)

Jonathon.

Thank you for your advice. I have now some leads to chase down. There is an equivalent organisation in Australia - A.P.R.A..

True - it's got nothing to do with the AGUS35 construction projects except that I want my music video footage to be trouble-free. - Some was shot with an AGUS version.

Accidental special effect. I am looking for some advice on how to replicate an effect which appeared quite by accident and I have found impossible to replicate.

I shot some test footage on a PD150P using an AGUS35. One of the clips is a view of a R & B and popular covers performer who was classical trained but does pub gigs and performances. His guitar work in these genres remains highly complex, crisp and ornamented. I had framed and focussed for sharpness on the guitar plank halfway between playing hand and the frets with viewpoint looking down the plank.

The nature of shooting with the appliance, an AGUS35 non-inverting version requires that the image be erected in post unless the camcorder is itself inverted for the shoot.

I got my greasy hands for a short time on an After Effects v5 machine and I inverted the images in this which has this fantastic box thing which you can click on one edge to pull the image over and letterbox all at the same time. To do this one also has to first de-interlace the footage. I also had a try at a filmlook method described at www.dvinfo.net. Due to haste and limited opportunity I didn't get it entirely right and I had to rework the original clip on my Adobe Premiere machine which I know my way around.

When writing to tape, I had a copy of the original messed up After Effects version of the music clip which I had brought back to look at in Premiere. I chose the wrong .avi file to outload to tape. On tape playback there is this fantastic strobing effect on the strumming hand on the guitar whilst the rest of the image is unaffected. The effect is not visible on the .avi file. So far I have not been able to replicate the effect in Premiere v6.

It may be a co-incidental artifact produced by the AGUS35 which has disk opacity defects, but whatever, the musical people who saw it like it.

Camcorder settings were manual. Shutter was 1/50sec.

Lighting conditions were outdoors undercover in bright daylight with 1000w of bounced supplementry light.

If anyone has any clues on how to do this again advice would be greatly appreciated.

You said that you de-interlaced it with haste. Do you think you could have went to de-interlace the wrong field? I've done a similar thing while converting from 30fps to 24fps, I shot the thing in frame mode unintentionally and was experimenting with converting in Vegas. There is one clip where the guitarist of this band I was shooting went down to the ground while staying on his feet.. and then as he shot back up it had this cool motion strobing effect.

I'm not sure about the technical aspects of any of it, but I've had the same thing.

weird idea?
 

about canon xl1

i'm not an owner of xl1, but...

if i'm not wrong - you can remove your lens from the camera? right?

if this is the case - why do you need ANY "normal" lens, but just agus 35 and relay lens?

agus35 is inverting the picture (making it upside down). sure. but normal lens also. so if you remove normal (canon's lens) you do not need any inverter - right?

all you need is relay lens which will help you in focusing to GG.

am i wrong on this?

filip

Unfortunately, I am not a lens person so I can not make good advice.

I think the relay lens would still have to be able to project the image sharply on the camcorder CCD and NOT invert the image which a normal objective lens does. It will have to be a complicated lens to do this.

update, pic
 

I was gonna put some footage up but I decided to screw up my GG, accidentaly broke it in half. Whats a good source for UV's? BestBuy?

anyways...no footage but here is what ive done in the meantime. I made this rail dealie., this thing is rock solid.

pic
http://aequantum.com/DSCF0003.JPG

John

if anyone is interested...
 

here is a link to my page where you can see my latest prototype of agus35 - made of aluminium. it's anodised and almost finished.

take a look.

http://www.astercity.net/~tarasuma/agus35.htm

That looks really nice Filip. You've obviously spent some time with the fabrication. Do you plan to use actual glass? or will you be using the plastic cd? I'm hoping that, after all that work with the body, you'll be using some high quality, finely ground glass.
Also, can you explain how exactly that wedge works... I can't really figure it out from the pics.
Great job on the adapter.

to Nicholi Brossia
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Nicholi Brossia : . Do you plan to use actual glass? or will you be using the plastic cd? -->>>

...

yes, you are right, i'm looking for really fine glass, but this is relativelly difficult to find here in warsaw. i'm in contact with an optician who is thinking now how to make it. the main problem for him is the hole in "frosted/glass CD". so we will see. until then i will test what is possible with fake CD version.

...
<<<--Also, can you explain how exactly that wedge works... I can't really figure it out from the pics. -->>>

the wedge is really simple. i just made shallow " L- shape" on the both parts of adapter in the absolutelly centered position, (let's call it "negative" shape) and after that i made "positive" part from aluminium. this positive L-shape is conecting both cover and bottom part, so when is positioned properly everything is in rock solid position.

and because i made both - the cover and bottom parts of the adapter with "positive" and "negative" screws - allways is possible to make small mistakes when you want to close- tight the whole adapter.
you never know is THIS position ok or a fraction of milimeter further... with that wedge you just know where you are.

so, in my opinion this wedge will keep all adapter in properly centered position. and the lenses will then work ok.

thank you for your feedback.

Filip-
Very professional setup. Great job! I like the adjustable motor mount and swapable lens adapter rings.

Are you planning on adding a condenser lens?

Did your parts come with the flat black finish or did send them in to have it done?

Why did you decided to rotate the GG instead of moving it in a overall circular motion?


Brett Erskine

to Brett Erskine and all
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Brett Erskine : ... I like the adjustable motor mount and swapable lens adapter rings. -->>>

thank you for your opinions.

<<<-- Are you planning on adding a condenser lens? -->>>
yes, definitelly. there is lot of space inside the adapter for that. but i'm consulting that with "my" optician. i must say that i can't work each day on this, so it goes very slowly, but i'm satysfied, because i can see more and more progress on this.

<<<-- Did your parts come with the flat black finish or did send them in to have it done? -->>>

i sent them to the special workshop where they finished parts in black. it's called ANODISING, (this is my "best guess" translation") - i decided to use black color - it looks kind od professional, at least more professional then yellow or dark brown, which was also the option there.

<<<-- Why did you decided to rotate the GG instead of moving it in a overall circular motion? -->>>

i know that this is not the smallest possible solution etc, but i said to myself something like this: you must finish at least ONE prototype in this manner (rotating GG, CD motor etc.) this is my fourth prototype, and i was ALWAYS borrowing something from the previous model, so the only reminiscence of my previous work were the pictures, nothing physically existing. so i decided to make it AS IS. and then to go further. with probably smaller glass, with different system for revolving or moving it etc. BUT...

i thing i owe something to Agus and this forum and this is kind of hommage to all of you. and that's the reason i decided to build it like this.


filip

Filip

Talk with your optician. Ask him if he can polish one surface of a 150mm diameter disk and dress the other side to be the groundglass finish. The disks are cut optical glass with ground finish. I am ordering 10x pieces from Ohara in Japan which will have the 15mm hole in centre.

If you want to contact Ohara direct, the email is as follows :-

Hiro@ohara-inc.co.jp

When you receive a reply, be careful not to delete it as it will look like junk mail. It has a code on front of the address when you receive it.

Following is an extract from his last email to me with costs information.

""""
Dear Mr. Hart;

OK, let's assume that the total weight of the package for 10 disks will be 5Kgs maximum. In this case the freight of the International Parcel from Japan to Australia is JPY8,200. So the additional cost per piece is Y820. Therefore our F.O.B. Japan Price of Y3,400 / pc turns into C & F Addressee Y4,220 / pc.

The total amount to be transferred to our bank account is Y4,220 X 10pcs= Y42,200.-

""""

Wedge (key) idea is very crafty. It eliminates my idea for using a lens tube right through the whole cover assembly. I am curious about the threaded mount for the PD150. The 58mm front filter mount
on the PD150 is plastic. If the Agus is to be mounted and dismounted from this, I would be inclined to use a 52mm mount and install a permanent 52mm to 58mm in the PD150 to avoid damage to that plastic thread. Alternatively I might stay with using the bayonet mount on the PD150. That is made of plastic but is wider. It has been strong enough so far to hold my Agus35. I made the matching mount of plastic to avoid damaging the plastic case on the PD150.

Filip that is so beautiful! excellent!

spindle pack?
 

is this the spindle pack everyone is using?

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?cat=3951&dept=3944&product_id=2326562&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A3955%3A4460

try and find an image of the pack your using so its easier on us stupid guys to build this thing..thanks

TWO-LAYERED GROUNDGLASS.

For those who are following the fixed groundglass path, here is something which may be of use or worth developing to a higher level than I have time to do.

Whilst educating myself with microscope slides in the method of polishing glass before I turn myself loose on the real glass disks, I decided to see if I could replicate the partial polishing back of the plastic CD disks which seems to confer an improvement in the brightness and sharpness of the projected image.

I discovered after polishing back some of the frosted finish on glass slides to a semi-opaque condition, it would be of little use as a groundglass screen because of hot spot and some of the aerial image being apparent.

But with two such groundglasses mounted with polished-back frosted surfaces face-to-face, a more useful projection surface can be found with the finer texture remaining, therefore hopefully better resolution than with a single more opaque frosted surface of coarser texture.

The downside will likely be two internal reflective surfaces instead of one and anti-reflective coatings on the clear sides will likely be mandatory to avoid ringing or spill around pinpoint bright spots in the image analagous to halation with motion picture film.

Furthur to above.

I have sent Chris some frames from my first workmanlike excursion for the non-inverting AGUS35 - PD150P combination. It was to record some performances of an R and B gig for shots to be extracted to include in a no-budget music video for the performers. The image filenames are "mtatk2f1.jpg", "mtatk2f2.jpg" and "mtstk2f4.jpg".

Lighting conditions were our autumn (northern hemispherers, = your fall) 4-00pm - 4-30pm, intermittant thin overcast, facing south (northern hemispherers = facing your north). The images were shot in electronic 16:9, squeezed, inverted and captioned in Ulead Photoplus4, but otherwise not altered.

The AGUS35 setup was rotating plastic CD made opaque in two processes, pressing with 600 grit, subsequent dressing with fine aluminium oxide then partial back-polish with a soft cloth. The disk has several deep scratches in it.

As a practical work tool, the AGUS35 has a long way to go yet. The non-inverted image is a serious distraction to good framing and if depth of field effects are being pursued, then motion film best practice of prior rehearsal and a focus puller should be followed.