BLACK 2.0

Have questions about the equipment used for macro- or micro- photography? Post those questions in this forum.

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Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I want it.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Any idea about the adhesion?

In particular, how well does it stick to bare polished metal?

--Rik

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

rjlittlefield wrote:Any idea about the adhesion? In particular, how well does it stick to bare polished metal?
It paints over most materials, including glass and metal, and is incredibly opaque (one thin coat on white "plastic" paper completely obscures it). But a hard scratch with a fingernail will scrape the paint off non-porous surfaces. I guess a good primer will cure that but the paint surface is pretty delicate too. It doesn't stand weather or heavy/prolonged handling (it is quite rough under magnification). They are working on a tougher matt varnish to protect it but that's "months away" yet.

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

A better test. The "very promising" impression I got yesterday from holding it up to the light has been slightly downgraded by this less subjective testing, but I still think it's very good for a water based paint.

The test setup is shown in the first pic. That's a trond lamp shining across the sample from the back (top) and at 90 degrees to the test surface. The second pic is the test results. The camera was on full manual (including a fixed focus distance) and the cropped samples are all straight out of camera with no adjustment. I excluded the white avery label from this composite as it added no information (nearly blown out at all angles). It was mainly used to get a consistent exposure range. The top "slice" was taken with the camera pointing straight down at the test piece, the bottom slice was taken at about 10 degrees from horizontal, with roughly equal spacing of angles for the other slices.

Note: the lamp was set slightly higher than the test surface to prevent issues with a slight veiling flare at low angles. This is why the lower right sample (sharpie pen) looks darker than it really should - it was reflecting that dark gap under the lamp.

Note 2: This test is in no way "absolute" - but does illustrate the relative "specular reflectivity" of the different materials at different lighting angles.

So - my further conclusions are:

Black 2.0 should be called Dark Brown 2.0 (edit: probably not true, could be a white balance thing. See later post)
It is extremely matt - showing no specular reflections at all.
I think it will still be useful as a flocking material for those areas where real flocking paper is difficult to apply.

Any thoughts?

Image

Image
Last edited by Beatsy on Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Excellent test. Not very encouraging.

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Lou Jost wrote:Excellent test. Not very encouraging.
Maybe so, but I certainly wouldn't call it "discouraging".

I think the paint has done rather well considering. Here's a blurred version of the test. I crudely blocked out the text first which caused a blacker blob at lower left, but I think it clearly shows that the flocking has brightened by a comparable percentage to Black 2.0 at the shallowest angle - although it did start at a much darker level of course. Those little bright specular reflections from the lower-angled flocking equate to quite a lot of light on average.

Image

zzffnn
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Post by zzffnn »

Thank you for doing this, Beatsy. I think I still have use for it.

How matt / smooth is the surface quality, say under a 4x NA 0.1 objective focused to its surface?

I am not sure its surface would be as smooth as carefully etched dark steel, but its specular reflection should be less?
Last edited by zzffnn on Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

zzffnn wrote:How matt / smooth is the surface quality, say under a 4x NA 0.1 objective focused to its surface?
It could only be on photomacrography.net that anyone would request such an image! The one thing I can think of that would be *more* boring than watching paint dry would be watching dry paint! So here, for your viewing pleasure, I present dry paint :D

Image

Incidentally, it didn't come out brown this time (the white balance was set manually based on a grey card). I suspect the sample confused the AWB I used for the test shots. I didn't think of that - so ignore my "dark brown" comment above (I'll edit that post to reflect this finding). I guess the other "blacks" must be bluer. Or it's a 'feature' of the lens used before. This was taken with a 10x mitty at 6x with the camera in APS-C mode.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

And only on photomacrography.com would someone be so kind (and skilled enough) to oblige such a request!!!!

zzffnn
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Post by zzffnn »

Beatsy wrote:The one thing I can think of that would be *more* boring than watching paint dry would be watching dry paint!
^ Thank you, kind sir!

I am guessing paint drying may actually look interesting under a microscope (some light interference?physical chemistry dynamics?)? But that is just the nerdy me :shock:
https://youtu.be/tGScamD3ofI
https://youtu.be/OW5wB8rJ8Zc

I guess that surface is too rough for using it directly as a macro backdrop up close (matte acrylic paint, as well as etched dark steel, has smoother surface). Many backdrops work fine, when focus point is about 1mm above (under 4x-10x objectives).
Last edited by zzffnn on Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Selling my Canon FD 200mm F/2.8 lens

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Beatsy wrote:Here's a blurred version of the test. I crudely blocked out the text first which caused a blacker blob at lower left, but I think it clearly shows that the flocking has brightened by a comparable percentage to Black 2.0 at the shallowest angle - although it did start at a much darker level of course. Those little bright specular reflections from the lower-angled flocking equate to quite a lot of light on average.
If that was computationally blurred, say in Photoshop, then you can't trust the results. This is another manifestation of the "gamma resizing bug", which you can read about at https://web.archive.org/web/20160729080 ... gamma.html .

To get a reliable comparison, you need to do the blurring optically so that the various reflections get added together as they would in a real application.

--Rik

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Beatsy wrote:
rjlittlefield wrote:Any idea about the adhesion? In particular, how well does it stick to bare polished metal?
It paints over most materials, including glass and metal, and is incredibly opaque (one thin coat on white "plastic" paper completely obscures it). But a hard scratch with a fingernail will scrape the paint off non-porous surfaces. I guess a good primer will cure that but the paint surface is pretty delicate too.
My major concern is about flaking. I'm thinking about using the stuff on the insides of adapters that might be hard to apply flocking. Wear is not an issue, but it would be a bad thing if the stuff started coming off spontaneously as some paints are prone to do.

--Rik

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

I've used some black "Camo" spray paint which Charles K recommended. It would be worth a comparison. I'll try it if I can find the can and it hasn't blocked itself up.
Chris R

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Any more info on how well this Black 2.0 resists flaking?

--Rik

lothman
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Post by lothman »

it is like (water soluble) acrylic paint, as long there is no mechanical impact I don't thin it will flake.

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