"Buy bag of 100 Votive Candles from IKEA."
Is this microcrystalline wax or parafin/bees wax? I started with the parafin, actually, and never got close to what I've seen with the micro version.

Oscar, you are a huge encouragement to this process, and yes, I've seen your website and thought I was following it quite faithfully. I bought a glass cutter, and have gone through 6 picture frames of glass already. I've got one almost perfect glass a couple of weeks ago, but within a couple of days, it was filled with bubbles. I haven't followed your procedure perfectly, however. I've never glued the aluminum foil to any glass (just slid into place with tongs, and held it there). Also, I've never agitated the wax per se (lots of slipping and sliding of top glass, though). And I've never squeezed down on the top piece of glass once everything was all lined up. So I'll include them in my next test ;)

Matthew, you should have seen my first setup -- a paper towel tube with a Nikon lens at one end, glass/wax sandwich gg at the other, duct-taped to an upside-down Sony Digital 8. I couldn't tell if I'd made progress or just wasted a good roll of tape.

It's unluckily just parafin. There's some pitting for some reason, but other than that it looks pretty good.

I started with all kinds of candles (and even pealed off the glossy top layer), but they have some mixture that only increase the grain structure. Pure beeswax or Paraffine was always better in my tests, microwax is just much finer.
Glen, if you still have trouble next time, tell me exactly what it is, because I probably didn't explain why I do everything the way I describe it on my site. Almost every step has a reason why I do it like that.

I'll be experimenting again tomorrow, and let you know how it goes. Thanks for your help, Oscar.

Oscar,

Just in case you were wondering, IKEA is a chain of home furnishings stores we have here in the States. Nice candles. No microwax though.

Hope this helps,

Bill Houser

Use earwax for a nice sepia effect. :)

Bill, I'm sitting on an IKEA chair right now. And we have those hotdogs too at the exit.

I just rescently purchased a bag of "translucent crystals" from the hobby store. They are made to raise the melting point of wax and embed things in wax candles.

They are little pellets that melt at 210F.

Is this the same as "micro-wax"?

thank you

Scott, it's probably not the same, but an additive like stearine or Vybar, but who knows, maybe it's even better. I think no one here has tested it before. If you do a quick test, look at it with a magnifying glass. I you see the grain without it, than it's not as good as micro wax.

Bill, I'm sitting on an IKEA chair right now. And we have those hotdogs too at the exit.


Was the chair imported from the US?

No, but maybe the hotdogs were.

I just rescently purchased a bag of "translucent crystals" from the hobby store. They are made to raise the melting point of wax and embed things in wax candles.

They are little pellets that melt at 210F.

Is this the same as "micro-wax"?

thank you

I looked into that before and was going to try some of that stuff that my girlfriend had left over from her candle making days. I had a small bag there somewhere but before I had a chance to try it I found my microwax.

I'm going to try to make some new lenses soon. Oscar your method seems great I was trying it the other day, but I got to ambitious and was trying to do 2 sets in the same pan of wax and while i'd get one positioned it would throw the other one off so I'm going to try again and try to just get one set good set in a pan.

Well I haven't gotten wax on my hands in a few months now, but I think I'm gonna give it another shot using the horizontal (non-capillary) method. This method would require way less wax since I don't have to heat up a half-pound block to submerge the glass vertically... so that is a real plus.

I'm curious to see how well microwax adapters work with HD cameras. Any of you guys w/ wax adapters have access to do a test like this?

Frank, it's not real HD, but I'll put a wax glass in my 'double cam' (two camera's split the image in two and create 1080 x 720 image). I start on that this month if I have some time.

Keith, good to hear from you again. If something does not work, let me know.

Thanks, Oscar!

That doublecam is something else, by the way. :-)

OK. This is one of those projects that crawls like, well, warm wax. But out of desperation, I finally managed a contraption that would at least let me get a rough sense of what we're all here to accomplish. I'd ordered some PCX lenses from Surplus Shed (before I really knew how important diameter and focal length can be.) I've also been using rather large pieces of glass since I needed to improve the odds of getting some wax that actually would work for me. The CD containers are all over my office, so that wasn't a problem. The lens mount -- I'd got a c-mount for Nikkon lenses off ebay, and removed the c-mount portion of it. I used wax to "glue" everything together (doing all I could to keep this from looking like a highly refined competitor to anything else that has been produced thus far.)
So I combined all these elements with the engineering expertise of a 3-year old, and went outside to conquer the world. Or my backyard, in this case. The movie (10 mb, for Quicktime 7) is at http://mysite.verizon.net/divfotog2/ if you're interested.
Yes there's grain, the size of small ball-bearings. The vignetting moves with the adaptor (I had to hold the adaptor against the camera, and found it hard to keep everything straight). But it works! I love the highlights in Ally's hair.
So what if half the picture is tape and wax, it's the content that counts, right?

Good job! Glad to see one more person having some fun with their adapter.

I did some capillary action tests between microwax and beeswax. The microwax cooled evenly, while the beeswax cooled in an ugly, very uneven pattern that would not be useable.

But the grain pattern was MUCH finer for the beesax. Odd. It transmits considerably more light, too, although I'm not sure if the thickness is the same.

I stopped down to f22 and didn't see any "grain" per se, even when shooting at the evenly white sky, although there was tons of dust and the wax had waves and junk in it. I also cooled it rapidly which probably resulted in both the waves and small grain pattern.

Anyhow, I'll do more tests in a week or so when I get back from my vacation.

Matthew (reply to your first post), that's why I don't use capillary action. The wax has to 'suck' through a very small space and it looks like it widens(spread) the grain structure. One of the reasons I put the glass horizontal and flip the second glass on top is because it compresses the wax structure in a way. And you can make it as thin as you like.

Matthew, I'd tried doing the capillary method, and found a couple of things. If I had a gap made by dental floss (separating the glass), I could dip one edge of the "sandwich" in melted wax, and use a hair dryer to warm up the rest of the glass, which would draw the wax up. However, it would only rise an inch or so, before gravity seemed to hold it back, so laying the sandwich over at a 45 degree angle would let the wax climb all the way. If bubbles formed, I'd focus on that area with the hair dryer, and could use heat to actually move the bubble up.
With aluminum foil separating the glass, the wax travelled up the glass much more easily, but I lost the ability to eliminate bubbles with heat manipulation. Heat from a propane torch didn't solve anything either. Seemed like dental floss was the ideal thickness, and if beeswax is "clearer" maybe that's not a bad thing.
As for cooling, I'm having better luck with Oscar's method. I believe having the excess wax surrounding the glass helps keep a more even reduction in temperature, so that all the crystalline activity during cooling stays more uniform. I suspect it's the uneven cooling process that creates the stratification we keep encountering. And while the capillary method is cleaner, it's also the most suseptible to temperature change across the glass.
Also, I've found with rapid cooling (dropping the molten wax/glass sandwich into a cold bucket of water) results in a clear, yet solid wax. So your rapid cooling of the beeswax may not be an accurate indication of it's diffusion properties, or its crystal size.

Interesting. Oscar, your method probably is best but I'm still going to experiment more with beeswax instead of microwax because I geniunely have found the grain to be finer. Maybe it's just me, though.

Glen, I've had no issues with bubbles using capillary action if I hold the glass straight. I heat the wax to the same temperature as the glass (sometimes heat the glass a little hotter) and it takes maybe 20-30 seconds for the wax to rise all the way to the top, at the longest, and the wax is still totally liquid and at a similar temperature throughout at that point so far as I can tell. The hotter the glass, the fewer waves in the wax and the faster it rises. I've been using aluminum tape and double sided scotch tape and stacking to various thicknesses for the spacers. My cooling method was just "throw it in the freezer" which probably resulted in the problems I had, but microwax didn't have those same problems to the same extent. I think both can come out okay, beeswax is just much more sensetive to uneven cooling.

I tried dropping the wax into a bucket of water, but water mixed with the wax before it cooled. Do I need to seal anything off or should I just drop it in? I figure it's worth a try if the water is cold enough. I'll try slow cooling, too, since that worked for me better once before. Anyhow, the results are quite good so far except for the waves in the wax, even without a condenser. (My current condenser is too strong and results in areas being distorted/out of focus, unfortunately, but did help with light distribution.)

Edit: I just tried slow cooling and everything worked great. I used a thicker spacer (twice the thickness of aluminum tape) and it helped a lot, too. I'll post some results when I get back from vacationing in California in a week.

Edit 2: A few random shots (camcorder tethered to my desk unfortunately and lens a bit OOF):

http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/new1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/new2.jpg

No condensor, but I'm getting there.

I used a thicker spacer (twice the thickness of aluminum tape) and it helped a lot, too.

I'll spoil the suspense for you -- your spacers are too thick. You may have a great, mostly grainless and possibly anamoly-free wax layer, but thicker than one piece of foil suffers light loss too greatly.

I'm waiting on some 1.4 micron aluminum oxide and a free day before I make my new run(s) at the project. I'll be doing another microwax series of tests and applying the 1.4 grit to my 3 micron ground glass too see where that gets me.

Got a pair of 97FL, 50mm PCX lenses, too :D

- jim

I believe I had ice in the bucket -- no water made it into the sandwich that I could tell, but the wax was clear and hard. Not what I'd expected. Now you've got me interested in the bees wax. I wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea just to heat small portions of these waxes on glass sheets, and do a simple analysis on their grain, and then do combos to see if that has any effect.
I do think that slow cooling allows the crystals time to orient themselves, resulting in finer grain. My best results have come from dropping the wax temperature to just above melting point, and at that point to turn off the heat. I suspect it's the "crossover" time from liquid to solid that does all the damage, and if it can be stabilized just before going solid, I think it improves its chances. (Of course, it doesn't hurt to burn some extra candles and do some ancient chants -- if nothing else it helps keep the wax from piling too high.)
Let us know when you get back from vacation.
I've never had so much fun with such slow progress before!

Glen

Tell me how the condensers work when you try them out. I bought two of different focal lengths but they were too strong, so I need to buy two more and those sound pretty good.

Yes, the light loss is probably one stop beyond what I experienced with microwax (beeswax is more translucent than micro-wax, though, so it's not that bad that it's so very thick.) Anyhow, the thicker wax is a bit softer maybe but it's fine for my current purposes. It's the first "flawless" screen I've made and it was easy to make, and given the fact that I'm using an 18 dollar macro lens, I'm not expecting perfect quality.

Edit: Here's a picture showing that it resolves decent detail:

http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/new3.jpg

I had to adjust contrast quite a bit to get enough contrast for the text to appear since I shot this quite poorly, and the lens being at f1.4 and book being close the DOF was so shallow that only a few words are in focus. Yes, it looks horrible, but the detail isn't bad. I'm encouraged.

Matthew,

It looks to me like you put a condenser between the GG and the lens? It's probably too strong. What is the focal length?

Quyen

Here's the sad part: I'm not using a condenser in these pics. The issue is related to the cheap macro (Asian brand off ebay) and lens being at f1.4.

To clear things up...microwax is at leased 2x finer than Beeswax or Paraffin. The reason that Matthew has more grain with microwax is either because of too much/long heating or uneven cooling, or it's not pure microwax, like a mixture for moldings.

Sonava...I bought those Asian macros too. What power were you using? Looks like I'm just going to need the 4+ and 2+ or maybe the macro, but I haven't seen distortion like that yet...geez. I guess the old saying's true.

"What's good ain't cheap and what's cheap ain't good"

"What's good ain't cheap and what's cheap ain't good"

I like "Cheap can be expensive".

You guys don't have the worry...the macro lens isn't THAT bad. The first two pictures are pretty indicative of its distortion, the last one is from a book that's slanted both vertically and horizontally shot in macro at 50mm f1.4, so of course the depth of focus is so shallow that only a few lines of text are in focus making the rest look horrible. I just wanted to get across how much detail was coming through: a reasonable amount.

I'll post some more results in a week or two, but it's not that bad. The macro lens is pretty horrible compared with century optics or whatnot, I'm sure, but it's not as horrible as it looks. I'll be using it for some upcoming projects, working around its limitations, but when I move on to something that has to be good, I'll be replacing it for sure.

Oh, and San Fransisco is freezing. The food's great, though.

I was just shooting the garden of our house in France with the microwax:
1 (http://s01.picshome.com/596/tuin4.jpg)
2 (http://s01.picshome.com/596/tuin5.jpg)

I started experimenting with my microwax glass again. I put the GG in my double DV camera system (two DV camera's filming the GG) for a higher resolution test.
I had to make two improvised macro lenses which didn't work out well enough. However, these first test show that the microwax is still pretty much grain free at a resolution of +/- 720 X 1010 pixels.
http://s01.picshome.com/a3f/waxd3.jpg
Most of the visible grain in this frame-grab is video noise. You can see the left part of the frame (left DV camcorder) is a bit out of focus or something.
I really have to fine tune all the four lenses I use to make a better assessment on the quality of the microwax glass, but it's a start.

Nice job. Higher res pics like this are always so much more useful.

Oscar, I was at IKEA the other day and thought of you. I'm glad you can share in an American institution like that.

Since you are taking pics of your house in France, I'll have to take some pics of our beach house with my adapter once my microwax is done. You know, some of the houses in my city are over twenty years old!

Oscar, yes I saw the noise, but wow it looks great.

Bill, we have a very friendly termite who died twenty years ago at the age of 80, so don't think to much of your town.
Say, I'm back in The Netherlands and suddenly we have a brand new IKEA in my own little city. Must be a direct order from Rumsfeld to put a new base here.

I'm going to rearrange my lenses today and see if I can get a better image from my adapter.

Just an update regarding my adapter:

I finally ditched microwax (it was way too grainy) and moved to beeswax. When I finally got an acceptably thing layer (thickness of scotch tape, not much light loss), the grain was too severe to be usable past f1.4. Here are some stills anyhow:

http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/3.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/4.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/5.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/6.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/7.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/8.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/9.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/10.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~kittyluv/latestcompressed/11.jpg

Still with the "Asian" macro. Oscar, do you know what brand of microwax you're using? I'm going to try to find a replacement for mine since mine is too grainy.

Matthew, I think they look pretty good. The grain isn't terrible, but maybe Oscar has a tip on how to get it to a more acceptable level for you.

Thanks for the encouragement. I think they look pretty good, too, only once I stop down to f2.8, the grain becomes way too apparent. The first half are a bit blurry due to camera movement, by the way.

I think my main issue is that I'm using beeswax, since microwax is probably a lot better. Only, the microwax I'm using now gives me more grain than beeswax. I'm not really sure why and I don't want to buy another 10 pounds of another kind when it may very well have similar issues.

Regarding methodology, I'm still using capillary action and still having my best luck with it. To be honest, I think the main advantage to Oscar's approach is that by allowing the wax to solidify while submerged in more wax, slow and even cooling is guaranteed. If a reliable cooling method were found for capillary action, it would be much faster and more efficient in terms of wax use. I still think Oscar's approach is probably the most consistant, although I just use capillary action, then submerge the glass after it's filled with wax since it's faster for me. Then again, I have no patience, which may be why I'm having issues with the quality of my wax screen.

If anyone knows what brand of microwax they're using that works well for them, I would greatly appreciate the info.

Matthew, your pictures prove to me again that wax gives the most beautiful image, like the G35, you get nice colors.
I think it's not pure microwax, because it should react the same way as beeswax, but only give a finer grain. I hope you now understand my reluctance (mildly put)on selling wax without allot of testing.

Bill....I just found out IKEA is from Sweden, looks like you only have coca cola, you know the Statue of Liberty is French?

EDIT: I have a local Belgium brand 'De Banier' so that's of no use. It's soft microwax.

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