What I bought was definitely pure microwax, and microwax with very typical properties according to the spec sheet I read. It's a shame it was grainy since it was very easy to work with and provided much more consistant results than beeswax. I can quote the exact brand name (which I forget but could look up) but it's a company that makes a lot of varieties of microwax so I expected better. I agree that I should have done more research before selling, though, and I'm not offering it anymore since it appears to have more grain than is generally considered acceptable (although for a moving adapter it would be pretty good since it produces very nice colors and is sufficiently contrasty).

Bill, you seem to have microwax that's good and availible in the US. Where did you find it and what variety is it? My adapter is so close to being done, and this is the one thing holding up its progress. Oh well, I'm returning to school in a week and that will basically put my entire life on hold.

As for wax being the best focusing screen, I'd agree. To my eye, the mini35 always appeared to produce washed out shadows, and the G35 seemed to be much nicer than the Micro35. However, the M2 (or whatever the updated micro35 is) seems to produce very nice images and uses what is being described as a grain-free, light-loss-free screen. It's probably not microwax, but I bet it has similar properties, which result in drastically improved images.

In fact, for $500, I may just go ahead and buy one....

Oscar,

French?? That one is a bit much to swallow. Next you'll be trying to tell me American fare like hamburgers and frankfurters come from Germany.

I think you may be mistaken about IKEA. In fact I am sure of it: Every one I have been in, all the signs and labels are in English.

OK, but Coca Cola sounds a bit Japanese doesn't it, anyway, Heineken is a terrible Dutch beer, don't make no mistake about that. By the way Bill, what are you working on, a wax adapter?

Matthew, I never used microwax (only beeswax and Paraffin) in a vertical setup, but it could be the reason for the grain. I stopped using a variant of capillary action because it seemed the wax was de-mixing or something by the gravity or the long heating. To me it's essential to use the horizontal setup, an idea I got from Dan Diaconu by the way (he mentioned flipping the glass somewhere). Too fast cooling can also create grain and maybe there is a difference in soft and hard microwax.

Oscar, your technique works -- for some reason I had to use a sardine can -- but it worked the best of any combination I've tried. However, my biggest hurdle now is getting control of dust, dirt, 1 or 2 small bubbles. So, I took a gamble and have spent the last three weeks slowly building an enclosed system out of a big plastic (clear) storage container -- rubber gloves fitted into the side, lexan window on top, ventilation off one side. I thought that would take care of the dust. But it introduced a few other problems -- clumsiness, making sure the wax is clean to start with, clumsiness, glass pieces sliding apart, clumsiness LOL. . . but I'm still pushing forward.
I am in love with how the wax handles light, and won't quit until I either succeed (no grain, little light loss), or fail (unacceptable grain, too much light loss).
I'd seen one of your posts about controlling dust by working in the bathroom, and the shower hot enough to drown the dust, but my bathroom wouldn't work, so I went with the small "nuclear-reactor" type enclosed device ;) It was worth the chance that it might give me more control.

Thanks for your help and inspiration,
G

Somehow I didn't have dust, but I don't know why. I was just working in the kitchen. But there are ways to get the dust out. The best way is to spray allot of water in the air (with a cheap spray for plants or something) until the dust drops down with the water. Also spray a bit on your clothes and hands.

Another thing that might help is to blow off the dust on the glass with those things you use in a photography darkroom. Besides the clumsiness, that enclosed box is a not a bad idea. What makes it clumsy?
Something else that I forgot one time was to clean the knife with which I cut the wax.

Maybe you work faster than I do - no time for the dust to be an issue. One thing that has probably effected my own efficiency is that I don't glue my aluminum foil strips down, so I end up having to keep them aligned and properly placed while trying to get the glass disks lined up. I guess I'm paranoid about glue affecting the wax later on -- creating bubbles or discoloration, etc. I now have a little contraption that holds the foil in place, while manipulating the glass layers, but I'm doing everything with gloves on -- inside a plastic box. So that's why I'm finding it a little clumsy right now -- frying pan, wax, glass layers, aluminum strips. But if I can get this to work, I should be able to get perfect results everytime, since I should be getting rid of a lot of uncontrolled parameters. At least, that's my hope ;) I'll keep you updated.

G

Yes, it sounds like no one should ring the door when you are busy, but it still sounds like a good idea.
Your right about the glue, if you don't leave it alone for a day, it will give some irregularities and bubbles, but in my case they stay outside the area of the projected image. But glue makes it much easier. Anyway, don't forget to leave the wax on the edge of the glass, otherwise you'll get cracking wax later on. All glasses I made that way can be dropped on the floor and things like that and stay perfect.

That's something I haven't done, making one piece smaller than the other. Is that really necessary? I've been cutting identical pieces, and just let the wax come out around the edges. Some of my older wax pieces have so many bubbles and stuff in them that I wonder how long any of this will last!Do you seal the wax with something after getting a perfect one, to keep it pure inside?

Making the glass in different sizes is the easiest way I came up with to leave enough wax at the edges. This way the wax seals itself. It really is crucial to leave the wax there to protect it from air coming in, but it's also very handy when you have to reheat the glass.

OK, I finally got a wax piece that was clear enough to continue with building an adaptor. Here's the link to a short clip (QT7). http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest/Adaptor2.mov
Still see plenty of grain, not to mention an air bubble (lower left corner) and dust.
Used two PlanoConvex lenses, sandwiching the ground glass as (|GG|) and a couple of diopters on my DVX100. Still lots of vignetting. I cut out a 35mm (slide) sized mask and glued it to the GG so when I zoom in, I can set it to an actual 35mm profile. You can see the scissors marks on the mask on the top of the picture.
This wax is tough, but I'm definitely making progress (thanks, again, Oscar for all your encouragement).
Lens is a Nikon 50mm at f/1.2, btw.
Now I gotta go back to making more wax GGs until I solve the grain problem. But the vignette on this looks pretty bad.
Is everyone else trying for a 35mm picture area, or are some zooming in until it just looks clear?
Sure'd be nice to have some standards here, while we compare results.
Still a heck of a lot of fun . . .

G

what codec you are using in your mov file? cannot play it...

filip

I also cannot view the movie. I have the most up to date quicktime.

Wayne.

Codec
 

It's a H.264 movie.

Plays well over here. Nice kid. Drinking milk.

Quicktime 7. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html (if you're on a pc.)
I'm on a mac, and don't have access to a divx encoder. The H264 codec blows it away, imho.
Wayne, are you sure you're running QT7? I just uploaded a Sorenson version (noisier, btw).
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest/AdaptorSor.mov
Working on my next gg . . .

Glen,
Run the quicktime updateer, and it now plays.

Results look good, lots of vignetting as you say. Its hard to comment on grain on a small video file.

Any more info in the condesnors your using?

Wayne.

I'm having grain issues, too. I'm wondering if -- at a certain point -- too thin a layer of wax becomes prohibitive. The grain evident in the microwax sandwich I've created recently looks almost identical to the grain from the 1.4 micron alumina GG I've made recently. I'm using pieces of clear plastic from the "window" of an envelope, glued to the glass with a Crazy Glue Pen.

Here's a full res side-by-side (exposure difference is only due to differences in lighting):

http://ideaspora.net/1.4micron_vs_microwax.jpg

Wax glass is on the right.

I'll post some full res video of the microwax later -- it's shot full of dust and other issues, probably because I've been re-using older pieces of glass and recycling the wax lately. I need to make another B&H trip to get some new materials.

p.s. Just watched my microwax footage out to an NTSC PVM and it looks absolutely grainless, and moreover pretty well exposed :D

The pcx lenses I used were from surplus shed. One was a 100mm FL, and the second was 110mm (the second one was also larger in size -- so as to fully encompass everything on the first one. I'm going to try taking them out, and see what the effect really is.
As to the wax layer, this one is so thin, I'm only losing 1/3 of a stop of light (according to my digital minolta light meter). So, if I double up the thickness, I may see a dramatic improvement there. I'm going to try a thin-layer version again, though, first.
Jim, you haven't come up with a method for reheating and cleaning wax, have you? I wouldn't think heating it up to its melting point repeatedly would hurt it any. Would you?

Glen,
You out of interest, if you hold that wax glass up to your eye, can you see through it and see details? You maybe only loosing 1/3 stop of light, but maybe letting in too much aerial image and loosing the 'shallow DOF' effect.

Maybe doubling the thinkness as you say will solve both issues, grain also.

Wayne.

No, I don't see that as being a problem. I reheat mine all the time, to try and get bubbles or other anomalies out. Of course, if you re-use the wax, the likelihood of dust getting into it goes up, too :(

As for cleaning the wax, I will say that I just recently "reclaimed" a series of earlier microwax failures by heating them up, letting the wax drain, and then using a combo of a razor followed by cleaning paper I've gotten them completely clean. I finished it off by whiping them with some professional lens cleaning fluid. I do, however, think that ultimately it's best to make all microwax screens with completely fresh glass.

Here is some microwax footage, full res, 66mb .zip file:

http://ideaspora.net/mwax_test.zip

You're going to see plenty of problems (i.e. dust, lines in the wax) with this footage on a computer monitor, but far fewer on an NTSC source.

Here is the compressed version of the footage that the above clip is taken from:

http://ideaspora.net/mwax.mov

- jim

No. If I lay it on a penny, I can read the text -- looks like a soft gaussian filter was applied to it. But raise the glass 1 penny's height up, and the text is completely unreadable.
Here's a link to a simple test I did. http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...fusionTest.jpg
Printed out the words "This is 8 pt." in 8 point type, followed by "This is 9 pt." for 9 point, etc. I then placed a stack of 4 pennies on each side of the print-out, and rested the ground glass on top -- snapping the picture.
I also glued a mask with printed numbers onto the groundglass so you can evaluate my focus ;)
I'm sorry I didn't have any horse hair laying around -- I was thinking about my orange tabby, but the hair from his tail is only measuring .0011 in. No wonder he sheds . . .

G

Yeah, dust is a huge problem for me. But my wax-sandwich-incubator has helped. I just tried cleaning wax with dish detergent (I'm sorry -- I know that doesn't make sense, but I get a little compulsive now and again). So now I have little snowflakes of wax floating in soap bubbles. I figure I could make some really clean candles with it!

G

Glen,
Looked at your diffusion test. Try holding it up to your eye and looking at a light, maybe a bright led on your pc speakers or something. Can you focus your eye on the led? or is it completely diffused?

Wayne.

If I hold the GG up to my eye, I see nothing. No details. No image. It might as well be self-illuminated white paper. It might as well be plastic from a milk jug. The led on my computer speaker doesn't even show existence until it's within a foot of the ground glass (with my eye against the glass). Then, all I notice is a slight tint of green in the middle of the "white" I'm looking at. I can't get a sharp image of the LED even when I press the GG against it.
I'm a little confused as to why you're questioning its ability to diffuse, unless you're just getting back at me for questioning your diffusion, when you did that split screen test :)! LOL

Here are some more links.
Looking at the LED (less than 30mm distance)
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...okingAtLED.jpg
A side view, with die for reference.
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...erspective.jpg
Holding diffuser in front of Sony Cybershot (2048x1536) while looking directly into the sun.
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...okingAtSun.jpg
Looking at the darker portion of the sky.
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...tSkyBright.jpg
Looking at sky, stopped camera down to see different grain pattern.
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...gAtSkyDark.jpg
Looking at my backyard, still stopped down somewhat.
http://www.dropdeadgorges.com/QTTest...ckYardDark.jpg

One thing's for sure. Photographing a groundglass with plenty of light behind it, but stopped down to avoid blown-out highlights, is a great way to "undress" it. Every flaw and pattern shows up --with no image to distract from it.

Wayne:
I'd love to see similar images from your collection of ground-glasses. Any chance of that?

Thanks,

G

I meant "Jim" when asked about the pictures of the ground-glass collection. Of course, that would include you, too, Wayne if you were working on static adaptors.
Sorry.

G

Glen,
No only reason i asked about the diffusion is from my own experience with microwax. When I get the layer really thin, you could start to see through it. I only asked because your only lossing 1/3 of light, so wondered if this was happening without you being aware.

You images clearly show this is not the case. Looks like your really making progress here.

Im working on my glass spinning at the mo, I promise some nice images up very soon!!! Im very excited about the quality my adapter will acheive. Problem is, I only have a 1 chip cheap camcorder to test it out on.

I do have some test images up from my optosigma glass:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/cat01.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/cat02.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/clock.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/fan01.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/fan02.jpg

Some video clips

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/candle.mov

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.k...rack_focus.mov

And a test of my new GG thats going to be in my spinner. Its to test light loss, there is grain and dust, but it will spin.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.kinney/GG.mov

Thanks,
Wayne.

Wayne,
You or someone else was talking about an "aerial image" that appeared through the optosigma glass, i.e. the original image came through and cancelled out the DO, or something to that effect...it doesn't look like any of that is going on here. Is there something that you did to prevent that from occuring? I used my optosigma and I didn't have any problems either.

Ben,
It happens more on bright objects (like the led of the speaker in the thread above). Im very picky when it comes to quality, I can see the effect in the picture with the cat out of focus, the cats nose....Basically its not diffusing the light enough. Glen has proven that he does NOT get this problem though, so I think he is making excellent progress.

Either way, I good GG should NOT let details through the glass, this only goes towards reducing the 'shallow DOF' effect, which is the whole point of the adapter.

Imagine this, a scale from 0 to 100. 0 is a completely transparent peice of glass, 100 is completely diffused. If you gradually go from 100 to 0, you will start with shallow DOF to a complete aerial image. So as you get closer to 0, the less 'shallow DOF' you have.

I would say the optosigma glass was around 90 to 95% on this scale, and i want 100%.

Wayne.

Wayne, I wouldn't confuse this issue too much with quality. Did you see the Guerilla35 footage? It clearly has allot of light going through the GG diffusion, but it seems to be collected by one or two condensers. Those highlights give a nice 'over exposed' look to it.
However, too much is terrible of course, but it looks like Glenn has got the right thickness. I made my own diffusion example on the this image: http://members.chello.nl/a.schultzev.../filterWax.jpg

Oscar,
OK perhaps 'quality' isn't the word, but I see it as being an incorrect and untrue image. It gives a 'haze' effect to the image in the 'out of focus' area's. Your image doesn't address the effect im talking about, since your glass is right flat up against the image behind it.

Example, take Glen's image of his glass in front of the green led of his speakers, that it properly diffused and how it should be. If i do the same with the optosigma glass, you get the green diffused light the same as glens, but also you see the focused light as well mixed in like two images mixed together. This means that the led will never go out of focus properly.

It just gives a strange and 'untrue DOF' effect.

I know this is a wax tread, but the same applies to a wax layer that is too thin. Same or similar effect.

Wayne.

Just 2 images to back up what im saying:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.k..._problem01.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wayne.k..._problem02.jpg

As you can see, the glass lets through far too much arial image. You should NOT be able to see the lamp through the glass like this. When in the adapter, the result will be this lamp with a blury mist/haze effect around it, instead of being properly out of focus.

I hope I have made myself clear.

Wayne.

ahh, okay, that helps a huge bunch. I had thought previously that you were referring to that effect while the ground glass was in the adapter being used. I didn't know you meant just holding the gg in general practice. Thanks.

Ben,
Read it again,
I did say what will happen when the glass is in the adapter:

Wayne.

Ahh, just proves I'm an idiot. Although i wasn't getting that at all with my optosigma, which is why I had trouble understanding. Perhaps I had GG of a different batch? Or maybe like you said you want that extra 5% that I probably can't notice all too well anyway.

I think eventually I may try the microwax technique just so I can say I've been the GG, vibrating, focus screen and wax routes.

To be honest ben, im also starting to think my glass is from a bad batch possibly.

Then again, my own ground glass i made with 1000 grit aluminium oxide, had the same problem, although not to the same extent as the 1500 grit optosigma glass.

I also ground a glass with 600 grit AO, this glass does not let any aerial image through at all, so from looking at these 3 glasses, I concluded that the finer grit you use, the more aerial image comes through.

It does look like microwax is the best solution for static, just a bitch to get right from the look of it. I think the wax suffers from the same problem if the wax layer is too thin, but it looks like Glen's glass is great, although he said he has grain.

Wayne.

Wayne: I just wanted to confirm that I think you are correct regarding the aerial image and grit size. I am working on a spinning adapter and I opted to use a larger grit to cut back on the aerial image / hotspot. As long as the adapter spins/oscillates quickly enough, large grain is the way to go in my opinion.

Hi Frank,
thanks for the input there. Your also working on a glass spinner, right? Would you be willing to share your experience so far? you method for spinning the glass? Looks like its only me and you working on a real glass spinner. May be you could reply on my thread here:http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=50507

Thanks,
Wayne.

This whole issue only applies to wax when you have a too thin wax layer, or you have the wrong wax. I've tested an expensive molding wax by silver/goldsmiths. It was very fine, but had some kind of mixture that greatly reduced the diffusion of the wax. It was too bad, because it comes in thin wax films, so you just put a sheet of wax between the glasses and heat it. The excessive wax is just pushed out (when you put a weight on top of the glass)No bubbles and no dust. I forgot about this, but I'll take another look at it, see if I can make wax films with microwax.

One other thing: what kind of wax are you using Glenn, some of the images you posted seem to have a bigger size of grain than microwax.

It's microwax. I ordered two varieties. This is the softer version. I've heated them up several times (I'm convinced the wax I keep getting -- from different places -- has dirt embedded in it), so I try to clean it by heating and letting the particles settle, after which I scrape them off. I'm glad you think the crystals are larger than expected as it gives me hope that I'll find a source of wax that has a finer structure.
I understand Frank Ladner was getting his from SPWax, or something. But now he's looking at rotating glass adapters? Did you end up with no luck on the wax adaptor, Frank?
Who, besides Oscar, has a satisfactory wax rig? Jim?
Another issue may be that my wax is so thin, that it's showing more crystal structure than we're used to seeing. I am only losing 1/3 stop of light.
I downloaded Jim's recent video, but found it hard to evaluate grain since most of the footage was dark. I like the simple tests (as Wayne used with the LED and the graph lines).
I'd never known the difference between wax and optosigma until yesterday.

Gotta go . . .

G

Glen, in my experience too much reheating resulted in more visible grain, but certainly a too thin layer shows more grain. I did not use a thinner layer than aluminum foil, with just 1 or 2 stops light-loss.

<<<Who, besides Oscar, has a satisfactory wax rig?>>>
How about the Guerilla35 and the MovieTube.

Back after having the neighbor's dog chew through my cable line :(

WRT my footage being "too dark" -- I'm sorry, but that's a GL1 for you. I shot it with an overhead 60w light and that's pretty much it -- no windows in this room. I can get some light spilling in from other rooms but it's largely inneffective with a cam that performs so poorly in low light. I'd pump up the gain, but then with it the grain goes up, too. Guess I could step outside, but then in a sense I almost want dark footage to see what the image looks like in "less than ideal" circumstances.

At any rate, I've got more wax tests in the way and will do a variety of different lighting scenarios.

I don't yet have a satisfactory, working wax glass, to answer an earlier question. Frankly, the 1.4 micron alumina GG I have was such a comparitvely easy job to produce (and reproduce consistently), that I've been half tempted to get 1 micron slurry and see if I can call it a day.

It's just that Frank Ladner and G35's footage looks so damn good I can't accept defeat that easily :D

- jim