Oscar: I still hold to Microwax being the best static solution. Working with it is a bit more difficult (thickness is key. Too thin = hotspots, too thick = heavy diffusion/softness), as many of us know, but it brings some nice rewards.

I've played with a bunch of variations (ground plastic, glass, rotating, vibrating, etc...) and here are my opinions:

Best static solution: Microcrystalline Wax

Best moving solution: Glass ground with larger grit (ie. WAO 500), spinning (with axis below bottom of incoming lens) (ie. like the old spinning plastic CD models)

Why larger grit? This greatly cuts back on hotspot/transparency and you get a bright image. Since the entire glass rotates past the lens, grain is not a problem.

Everything's a tradeoff, though. If you want a compact adaptor, oscillating/vibrating would be the way to go, HOWEVER even in vibrating adaptors you can still see soft grain due to the grain moving in tight circles - you get a larger 'ghost' type blur of the grain)...so you have to use a lower shutter speed.

Just my observations and conclusions based on a few years of following the homemade 35mm adapter progress.

The common understanding to avoiding grain is that you leave the SLR iris open fully and use an ND filter or close the iris in the camera itself if there's too much light.

No. Leaving the iris open all the time creates too shallow a depth of field for those of us with really shallow lenses. It's all a balance between setting the SLR aperture to get the depth of field you want, setting the camera's iris to what you want, and using ND's.

Exactly Bill,

I feel these adapters should be used to allow you to shoot with 35mm lenses as if your using a real film camera. Do you leave the aperture open the whole time with a film camera? NO. You set the aperture to give the desired DOF for the type of shot your trying to create. Obviously you need more light for any giving shooting situation with a camcorder then a film camera with the SLR stopped down, but the point is that the creative freedom is there. This was 1 reason I designed the SG35 to be able to stop down the SLR lens.

Wayne, way to be hypocritical!
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=356695#post356695
Originally posted by Wayne Kinney:
Graham,
I beleive this to work, but I think its best to keep the SLR aperture open, and adjusting the exposure of the image with the camcorders aperture.

Wayne.

Originally posted by Ben Winter:
Actually I was referring to if someone wanted to deepen the DOF using aperture control. But, of course, we're all in this for shallow DOF, so why not...
And Bill even agreed with you! Bloody lot of good my comments did.

Phooey ;)

Yeah your right Ben

but then someone commented on how closing the iris would negate the purpose of the adapter in the first place.


This is what it boils down to. If you want shallow DOF thn fine, but the real opportunity these adapters brings to the DV filmmaker is to use the 35mm lenses properly in order to tell his/her story, not to have every shot with completely shallow DOF. Also, try getting a nice wide shot, like with a 24mm lens, with the same look or feel WITHOUT the 35mm adapter, and just with a wide angle adapter on the camcorder. Not the same.

So i guess what im saying is lets stop with the shallow DOF thing, as there are other benifits of the adapter, in my opinion.


Graham,
I beleive this to work, but I think its best to keep the SLR aperture open, and adjusting the exposure of the image with the camcorders aperture.

Wayne

The above was emphasising the freedom you can get that not even a film camera can do (without ND filters) is to adjust the amount of light without effecting DOF.

In my experience, everything that filters the amount of light causes the grain to be more visible (I guess it gives more contrast and sharpness on the GG)
So I mean all three options: narrower aperture on the adapter, narrower iris on the camcorder, ánd also a nd filter.
Anyway, the grain is not too visible, something like this (http://members.chello.nl/a.schultzevspierenburg/wax/microwax/micro2.jpg) (shot with a lot of bright and direct sunlight)

I'll do some more tests with filters though, but my first results weren't better than a smaller aperture.

I like the grainy look somewhat. I think 35mm adapters don't have to exactly reproduce a film look, just a look that affects the audience emotionally in a similar way than film.

I've seen what you mean, Oscar, but one thing I notice that hasn't been mentioned a lot is that stopping down the camcorder, thereby increasing its depth of field (which is on the GG), can give a distinctly different effect than reducing incoming light by either ND's or the 35mm lens' iris.

What I wonder is...

We all see this crap under a microscope, so to speak. If we were to show our projects in the intended venues - NTSC tv set in front of the family; PAL projector on a 100" screen; small screen movie theater at a film festival, etc. - what would the audience notice?
"Gosh that thing had this weird haze." ?
"Was your camera's lens dirty?" ?
"It looked kinda cool." ?
"Howcome it didn't look like video?" ?

Would the grain from the GG of our static adapters really detract from the movie?

We can hypothesize all we want but I want to hear about real world responses from non-dvinfo.net people. Should be interesting!

We all see this crap under a microscope, so to speak. If we were to show our projects in the intended venues - NTSC tv set in front of the family; PAL projector on a 100" screen; small screen movie theater at a film festival, etc. - what would the audience notice?
Not unless they are sleeping or wearing "black glasses"! What we all see "under the microscope" gets enlarged and becomes obvious for all on larger screens/displays. How much and what they figure out of it.... ?no idea.... but the feeling of looking at "a screen" definitely impacts negative with the illusion of watching something real. (creates an artificial barrier to letting go reality and getting into the story, imo) Try it! Take the DVD in a plasma/projector retail, check reactions and post back. We know what we want and seek, but they don’t. It is “their opinion” that counts not ours (imo, lol)

Actually, I made a working LCD/OH projector with high resolution. With the first tests I projected some older Paraffin wax footage, which shows a soft grain all over the image. I must say, someone who doesn't know what he's looking at, will have to be pointed out what you mean with 'grain'. At first it just looks as if it's the structure of the projection screen.

Further tests will of course be done with microwax clips, which is at least 2x better.

At first it just looks as if it's the structure of the projection screen.
True!
I had in mind the look of "grain" as in static Beattie (crisp points) vs a soft veil -if any-for microwax.

My first post! :)

Been reading up on the agus35 and all these 35mm adapters which have exploded since then, it's quite exciting.

Further tests will of course be done with microwax clips, which is at least 2x better.

Hi Oscar, I've read your method for your microwax 35mm adapter. How do you get all the lenses in your setup to stick together? (58mm lens, tube, condenser1, wax gg, condenser2) I'm assuming they don't all screw on together perfectly?

Thanks

Matt

It comes down to finding tubes and rings that will fit more or less onto each other. For my latest version I used (hard)PVC pipes and a tube with a lens mount from a macro ring that came with the lens. The hardest part is to fine adjust the distance of the focal plane so that it is exactly set to infinity.
The easiest way of positioning everything is sticking it all together with a hot glue gun. But every leave it like that. I always put some epoxy glue on all joints.

Hi everyone!!

I have taken up the wax messmaking hobby (big thanks to everyone for their tips etc.) what do your waxes look like in their original form, I have a big block of microwax but I couldnt say its white, its slighty yellowish in colour, is this normal/ok? or does everyone else use bleached wax? im figuring a white balance will fix the minor colour change. I have made 3 screens so far using glass from cheep picture frames and 1 looks ok just a streak on one side but I think ill be able to offset the image to avoid that area. also does it make a lot of difference using glass plates as opposed to actual lenses?

and is a macro lens necessary if i can focus on the screen without it?

many many thanks for all the work everyone has done :D ,
dave

At that thickness the color of the wax has little impact, I believe.

Dave: I think your solution for white-balancing would work fine.

As far as the glass used, I did the same thing you are doing. Instead of spending a lot on UV filters, I got cheap ($.50 to $1.00) picture frames and used the glass from them.

Here are some of my old test images and video clips:
http://70.147.193.182/mwtest/
Notice: Video footage is uncompressed, and running on a server with a slow DSL upstream.

I tended to make my wax layers thicker than was probably necessary. This gave maybe a bit too much diffusion/softness, but I didn't really have hotspot problems.

Hope this helps!

Wanted to update the URL: (On port 81 now, not 80.)

http://70.147.193.182:81/mwtest/

what do you guys use for cleaning up the wax. I had a pretty bad failure and I'd like to clean off the UV filters I used and try again.

is there some way to wash the wax off?

Also, how do I get the wax off once I do get a working GG? I am trying the bathing method in the oven but it completely submerges the two pieces of glass. so I'd like to be able to clean the wax off the outside without getting in between the two filters.

i use alcohol wipes. They work fine for me. try this method instead.

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/ds_wax_gg.pdf

all the best,
-rh

I ran hot water over the glass long enough for the wax to become soft, which made it easier to remove.

Hey guys. So can anyone tell me why the physical properties of wax diffuses light so well?

In an actual ground glass focusing screen, the diffusion amount depends on the size of the grain: the bigger the grain the more diffusion you get. Well, this is obviously not the case with wax screens since you have a much smaller grain in it, but it has far better diffusion than any ground glass ever could.

Anyone know why?

Thanks!

This is only a wildman's guess and a layman's description. Please do not accept this comment as having any validity.


With a conventional groundglass, the sides of the pits in the groundglass are the diffuser. The size of the pits sets the resolution limit. A five micron grade seems to be about the ideal for home worked groundglasses.

The effective thickness of the diffusion layer of a "ground" glass is going to be in the ballpark of upper (at surface) peaks to depth of deepest pit or scratch in the glass caused by the grinding media.

So for a five micron aluminium oxide slurry, we might assume the layer is up to five microns thick at the deepest points though there will be shallower pits in between.

That's it. The diffusion layer does not get any thicker unless you place two groundglasses face to face.

You can try a finer grade of grind and place two such groundglasses face to face to try to eliminate aerial image passthrough which causes the unwanted "ghosting" artifact.

This does not seem to work all that well as resolution seems to be about that of the coarser grade of finish as a single layer.


With wax, the microcrystals are the diffuser. They set the resolution limit to some degree. Let's speculate that the microcrystals are finer than 5 microns. In theory at least, there should be a superior resolving ability.

In practicality, like the conventional groundglass, the finer the texture, the thinner the layer, more aerial image gets through and causes the unwanted "ghosting" artifact.

However, unlike a conventional groundglass, the thickness of the diffusion layer can be varied. The resolution also does not remain as sharp if the wax layer is thickened as more microcrystals intervene and cause subsequent diffusions as the light passes through the wax layer.

However it seems to perform better than a conventional groundglass and seems to have a cleaner colour rendition and crisper whites than a conventional groundglass which seems to impart a slightly muddy cast to the natural colours.

My theory on that is in the conventional groundglass, that some colour separation and subsequent mixing may be occuring. Each peak between pits may be functioning as a microprism, separating colours into neighbouring areas of the image. There they may bounce off an adjacent pit side to mix with colours from other reflections and become less distinct to camera.

It is also likely that bits of opaque fine debris from the grinding media sit in the bottom of the pits of a conventional groundglass and are impossible to entirely remove and cause a discolouration.

A wax layer and its microcrystals remains pure.

Bob, my guess would be as wild as yours, but I think you're probably right on most parts.
I don't know if it counts for every wax adapter, but mine has a condenser lens in front and back of the (static) wax glass (idea came from Frank Ladner). The aerial image almost disappears because the condenser 'captures' the image that passes through the wax. I noticed this for the first time (EDIT: because it has a noticeable reflective effect on highlights) in an early clip of the guerilla35, but I can't find it on the web anymore.
I'm planning to make a new adapter. To make it small, I need to find two rectangular condensers (same size as the 35mm image) I took apart two old slr cameras to get the condenser from the viewfinder, but both had the exposure markers on the glass. They are made of plastic, but nonetheless good lenses. Anyone got a better idea?

Condenser from Nikon F gg maybe? This is in every Nikon F gg and can be very easy dismounted from its frame and does not have any markings. Markings are on plastic gg from it.
Condenser lens is multicoated on both sides.