Matte Box advantage?

[Kai Leibrandt]

For Justin and others interested: the phenomenon of banding light patterns is called diffraction (or interference) patterns. A really nice and straightforwad explanation of the physics involved can be found at

http://www.lightlink.com/sergey/java/index.html

but make sure you have a java-capable browser. It also has explanations of other basic physics, not just optical phenomena.

Kai.