Jesse, what is microcrystalline wax? I think a product name of Strahl & Pitsch. I can´t say what mixture it is. I know it is natural wax and we also tested it years ago. We dont had a way to change the mixture, so we make more tests with basic products like paraffin and bee's wax. We also make tests with chemical products.

Jesse: Microcrystalline wax is characterized by its small grain.

Check these links out:

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=53814&tocid=0&query=paraffin%20wax

http://www.calwax.com/products/Microcrys.asp

Frank, thanks. We will check it soon, but the man who made our tests with microcrystalline wax is in vacation. So i can´t say details yet. The only thing i can say, with the other method our results are better.

Rai.

I made a wax brew of 90%/10% and applied it between two oharadisks (glass CDs). Through a magnifier, the grain structure is about the same as the normal ground-glass dressed with 5 micron aluminium oxide powder water slurry.

The size grading of this grain structure varies across the disk which brings back the problem of variable density flicker I had with the plastic CD-R disks. This is why I went to optical glass.

Is there a subsequent annealing process to make the grain structure even across the screen?

Images through the rotating "boss screen" do not seem to be sharper but the colour seems brighter.

Furthur to above, there are some images posted at "www.dvinfo.net/media/hart" titled "waxds002.jpg" or similar which are a test of a rotary wax composite disk. You'll have to put the address in by hand as it is not a link. I've forgotten how to do that href thing to embed addresses in the text.

Do any of you guys with the microcrystalline wax have like a 3 megapixel camera? Couldn't you use that instead of a DV camera to determine at what resolutions the grain becomes visible?

I have an 8 megapixel camera, and a Nikon Lens. Right now, I'm just starting to experiment with all the stuff I've been reading here. My first GG was just a piece of a white plastic bag stretched tight as a drum. Then I graduated to the school of rotating GGs and took a beltsander to a CD-R.

So I guess I should get my hands on this wax mix and start taking some hi-res comparison pictures of the different GG methods.

Obin,
I'm pursuing getting my hands on a nice wide angle Medium Format lens, just in case a 1280x720 sensor ends up seeing the grain too much when focusing on a square the size of 35mm film. The image projected onto the GG from a Medium Format lens should be over twice the size of what the 35m lens projects. And I've been reading all I can about depth of field to figure out if the medium format will be too different from a 35mm lens to get the 'movie' look we're all going for here.

Matthew.

Although my tests with wax were shot with a rotating disk, I can advise that the grain structure was of a size similar to the AO 5 micron dressed optical glass disk.

I had no access to 3 micron so I allowed the 5 micron to wear down to exhaustion for a finer finish and partial polish-back. A polish-back seemed to confer a better clarity and brightness with plastic CD-R spacers.

With the glass, this is a bit tricky. If you leave the slurry in that state for too long, the glass hangs on the dressing sheet and gets gouges in it.

When shooting with the glass and CD-R, the spinning disk eliminated the grain as such but another effect in strong backlight, I describe as scintillation similar to snow or video noise, but of a finer texture, becomes apparent. It was subjectively like fine film grain.

It was more so with the glass disk until I went to the 5 micron and degraded the image even with the spinning disk. I theorise that the form of the abrasions in the glass and CD-R creates random pinpoint flashes of light under these conditions. It may be visible in the still image mtatk2f2.jpg in the background behind the guitar player. It was on the DVD.

You can see this effect in some of the still images even though the disk was moving. If some of the frame captures are enlarged heavily, you can see a pattern of blockiness of about 8 pixels area, where the DV codec is struggling with the high rate of subtle change between frames.

The wax disk originations dont seem to do this. Instead you see a pattern of slightly darker or lighter patches in the image more like very faded freckles. My theory for what it is worth is that whilst the wax disk that I have made does not yield a finer resolution, it does not introduce so much fine textured highlight variation in the image from frame to frame, so the codec does not have to play an aggressive averaging game with the resolution, therefore the image appears to be clearer. This is not of much help for fixed groundglasses. I think that whilst the grain structure is there i9n wax, it does not seem as sharply facetted like the glass texture is.

The beeswax portion of your brew will have to be carefully cared for as it darkens with overheating. It melts lower than boiling point of water and slightly before the paraffin and seems to have a tendency to settle out. Hold your glass above the brew in the heat for a while to preheat it before you drown it so you don't crack it. Likewise, don't haul it out into cold air in any haste.

I recieved my microwax about a week ago, and I've been trying different ways to minimize the airbubbles the last few days, however with no obvious success.

I've tried bonding the glasses at the sides and bottom, and then submerge it into the wax. What I can't figure out is why some airbubbles insist on staying between the glass. Even though I let the glasses sit in the hot wax for a while ( hell, I let it sit for two hours!! ). Any ideas anyone, to get those bubbles out??

One thing I discovered while experimenting, when I accedentaly dropped some hot wax into my pot with boiling water. When I was done for the day, and let the pot cool off, the wax solidified pretty evenly, on top of the water. The layer was too thick though, but if you poured just a small amount of wax into the boiling water, perhaps it could be carefully taken out once solidified?

If there is a slight imperfection in the glass surface or a minute speck of dust, an air bubble will hang instead of moving up.

When making my composite disks, I found I had to place one disk in the melted wax, then lower the other disk into the brew at an angle so it became wetted and any bubbles moved off, then lower it on to the lower disk.

Because I kept the temp low, I was able to use a CD-R spindle to preserve alignment but getting the disks off it afterward was a problem.

I used pieces of cooking foil for spacers between the disks. TO prefvent them from moving, I glued them to the glass with PVC wood glue (I think you folk call it Elmers) on the outside surface and folded them under to provide the spacer. The glue washes off afterwards and the spare foil is trimmmed off.

Due to the method I used to figure and polish the disks, there was too much surface variation for them to be used back to back with any hope of a consistent thickness of wax between them.

I found this to be the cause of the variable density flicker I have previously described.

To melt the wax I have used an electic cookpot which has a sensor control somewhat like an electric frypan and will hold good temp control at or below water boiling point.

To clean your wax off the outside of the glass, use a fine razor or scraper blade, then use Preen trigger spray, then water and kitchen detergent, then methylated spirit or blue window cleaner.

Just a thought here: when you get a chip in your windshield, and they come out to patch it, I understand that they put some sort of gel on the outside of the windshield where the chip is, then use suction on the inside which instantaneously sucks the gel into every little crevice. From what I have heard, once they have done this, you can't tell there was ever a chip.

I have to imagine this has potential for us. If we were to begin to submerge the two pieces of glass into the wax, then somehow apply suction at the top, thereby forcefully drawing the molten wax into the sliver of space between them...
I don't have any wax yet, so I am unable to try it, but Martin, if you are game, maybe this will be the ticket. Got a vacuum cleaner?

haha! .. vacuum cleaner! :)

I actually had this idea a while ago .. sucking up the wax .. but the problem would be to keep the wax inside when you remove it from the pot .. hmm .. but it's worth a shot, though !

Bob, are you saying that wax isn't good enough to be used as a GG? Have you tried microwax after your paraffin and beeswax mix?

Another technique is to make a frame of aluminium foil on a glass, the pour hot wax in the middle, and then smash another glass on top of it, forcing any bubbles out. But I guess the wax is too .. "waterish" to make this work.

Anyone knows what technique they use to make those Bosscreens?

Using a vacuum is legitimate provided you preheat your glass to keep the wax liquified. Maintain the vacuum and wax supply whilst you cool the glass. Any entrained air in the wax will expand furthur under a vacuum. (There may be a problem with light fractions vaporising in vacuum conditions and making furthur bubbles or density inconsistencies in the mix but this one is theoretical).

I have only used the 10% beeswax blend. The waxdisk.jpg files on www.dvinfo.net/media/hart were doens with this brew.

I have not yet found a handy source of micro-crystalline wax in W.A.. We do have a petrol refinery nearby so it might turn up there.

The aluminium foil idea is a dead-end or at least in the method I used. It is too hard to immobilise unless you fold tags over to glue it on back of the glass. It tends to expand, float and crinkle which spoils the precision between the glass panels.

I tried centrifugal force by spinning the disks and the CD-R spindle under the wax to make the bubbles migrate to the center however sooner or later you have to stop in order to haul the composite disk out and any bubbles go back to the widest points between the two surfaces.

I think the best method will be to bring the two glasses together under the surface whilst holding them in a vertical position, then slowly laying them over, cooling the mix until at butter consistency then hauling the composite out to set hard. This requires more wax than I have on hand at the moment and a taller hotpot than I possess right now.

I found out the hard way that even a fingerprint on the inside of the glass will trap tiny air bubbles inside. The inside layers have to be super clean.

Also, instead of heating a bunch of wax in a pot to get a enough for me to submerge the glass in, I just formed an aluminum cup (make sure to double layer it, though, depending on the foil's strength) and poured the hot wax in there. Then I submerged the glass sandwich (which consisted of two .99 cent picture frames, about 50mm in diameter, with a couple of folded bits of aluminum foil in between them and JB Weld around the sides, except for a notch at the top.) This would fill with wax and the air bubbles would rise to the top and out the opening. It needs to sit for a while, because those air bubbles are slow moving. I have found that it helps to take a pair of tongs and squeeze the glass a little, forcing the bubbles to work their way up more quickly.

For cleaning the outside of the glass after the wax had cooled, I would use a hair dryer - and just enough to heat the outside wax. Then I'd just clean it off with a rag.

Hope this helps!

,Frank

Hair dryer - now I wish I had thought of that.

:-)

But you have to be careful and use the hairdryer on a low power, otherwise you might make a mess.

Or you can apply some paper directly over the wax and heat that. Most of the melted wax will soak into the paper. The rest you can just clean with a rag.

did anyone of you tryed to make proper GG with silicone glue? (not colored, but semi transparent one)
i mean to put super thin layer on glass - and when silicone is dry it's almost proper transparency for GG - or not?

what do you think?

filip

Here's a 10 frame JPG sequence for you guys to check out.

It is slightly out of focus, which is one of the best ways to get grain to show up.

No post has been done except for the letterboxing.

http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00000.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00001.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00002.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00003.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00004.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00005.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00006.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00007.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00008.jpg
http://www.frankladner.com/images/tree_pan_00009.jpg

Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you!

Looks pretty good Frank. I only see a tiny amout of fixed pattern grain.
-Les

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Ladner : Here's a 10 frame JPG sequence for you guys to check out.

It is slightly out of focus, which is one of the best ways to get grain to show up.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you! -->>>

Les: Thanks for checking them out!

I've noticed that I don't have as bad of a hotspot with wax as opposed to ground glass. I believe this is due to the thickness of the wax layer, so if you had a thinner layer, you'd get a brighter image w/ hotspot similar to glass.

With a rotating device, however, I feel that it would be better/safer to use regular ground glass (in conjunction with condensers to remove hotspot) so that you wouldn't have to worry about the wax eventually melting or changing color.

Frank,

Image sequence looks great.

How thick is the wax?

Justin: Thanks!

Well...I can't say an exact measurement of the wax thickness but this should give you an idea: I took a couple of thin strips of aluminum foil (regular stuff - not heavy duty) and folded them a couple of times to make the spacers between the two pieces of glass.

I'd say the thickness is a bit less than that of your fingernail.

Frank,

Would it be asking too much for another slow-pan image sequence, this one being a little longer (20?), and having something - that tree would work fine - in focus?

I only ask because this method that you are developing appears, at this point, to be our best bet for a static adaptor.

Thanks.

Justin: Sure! I just sortof ran outside and grabbed that blurry tree footage just for the pan test. I'll get some in-focus shots tomorrow (It's dark right now.) and hopefully have a longer sequence uploaded.

I uploaded 30 jpg frames from a sequence captured today.

Sorry these aren't zipped. (Don't have a zip program at the moment.)

http://www.frankladner.com/images/micro_00000.jpg

through

http://www.frankladner.com/images/micro_00029.jpg


Just copy/paste and change the number. Again, sorry about these not being zipped!

Thanks!

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Ladner : I uploaded 30 jpg frames from a sequence captured today.... -->>>

frank, the last jpg i downloaded was with nr 18, after that - i just see info - 'page not found'. i beleive that something is wrong with your page(s).

please - recheck your site. thank you.

filip

Filip: Sorry about that! It's because the images weren't there yet. I had them uploading (on dialup) as I was posting the message.

:-)

Going back and looking at those images...I still didn't have it in exact focus. (Hard to do with a small viewfinder.)

Maybe you can 'rack focus' while it's recording. That way, we can see the DOF and something will be in focus.
-Les

Les: Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try to get some new footage uploaded in the next couple of days.