Looking for new diffusion materials

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Dalantech
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:57 am

Post by Dalantech »

mawyatt wrote:
Dalantech wrote:
mawyatt wrote:A pair of light tents, one inside the other, separated by 6" or more is what I use when extreme diffusion & illumination uniformity is required.

Best,
I'm limited by the critters that I shoot, in the condition I want to shoot them.

ImageFeeding Honeybee VIII by John Kimbler, on Flickr

Would love to use a light tent, but it's just not practical.
Just cut the material out and use it without the tent in a DIY fixture.
I'm holding on to the lavender stem with my left index finger and thumb, and resting the lens on that same hand to keep everything steady. The honeybee ended up resting on my finger. There's just no way I can use a light tent for that kind of shooting. If there was something covering the lavender the bees would just avoid it.

concon
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:21 am

Post by concon »

Ordered a $50 dollar sheet from https://www.rpcphotonics.com/

Not sure it's going to be any good (or the size of the sheet), but I've had great luck with PET before as that's what my current diffuser is made of. Shipping was a little overkill imo, but it's not calculated shipping so expected. Will report back...

But ya- if you have a friend with a 3d printer, you can create diffusers. I have great luck with them and you can get them made in all sorts of shapes. I'm currently using a hinged version that allows me to easily change out the part which falls over the subject.

Dalantech
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:57 am

Post by Dalantech »

Curious to here what you think of the material concon.

concon
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:21 am

Post by concon »

I'll update this topic once it gets in :) It should get here next week (which is sad as shipping costs were brutal, haha)

Dalantech
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:57 am

Post by Dalantech »

concon wrote:I'll update this topic once it gets in :) It should get here next week (which is sad as shipping costs were brutal, haha)
I feel your pain! I have to have everything shipped via priority mail unless I'm willing to wait more than a month for something.

concon
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:21 am

Post by concon »

I hear ya- all of my adapters come from Russia so it's definitely something I'm used to- I've just never been charged 20 bucks for shipping in the same country on an item that weighs less than a pound haha. It'll be here in a few days so it's probably just a general price to handle international shipping as well.

concon
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:21 am

Post by concon »

Alrighty, the diffusion material from https://www.rpcphotonics.com/ came and I've run various tests with it. Out of the box, it's fairly worthless for our application. Since it's for highly directed light, like a laser, it pretty much just let's a strobe right through.

It's very neat to play with though and does some fascinating stuff with a laser light when stacked and adjusted as you would a polarizing filter. I've cut the sheet into 4 squares and will be continuing to play with different shapes and distances to see if there's anything here, but I'm doubtful.

If all else fails I'll just try taking some pictures of it with an 80x to see if it's interesting to look at.

Dalantech
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:57 am

Post by Dalantech »

Thanks for the update!

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