JohnK on the holography forum had asked if I’d experienced any problems with delayed development of VRP-M. He’s been working on making holograms using a Coherent 315 and VRP-M film and was wondering VRP-M was sensitive to delays of several hours between exposure and development.
I normally develop right after exposure but did the following test to find out how VRP-M behaves.
*sigh*
You know you’ve got too many balls in the air when you set up to make a hologram and forget to put the unexposed plate in the plate holder.
I had cut up a couple of pieces of film and soaked some of them in TEA while planning to expose one untreated piece.
I got all the other pieces soaked and squeegeed, took final light measurements, left the lab and started the exposure from the other room.
Everything went according to plan, the shutter opened and closed properly but when I went back into the lab to develop the film I discovered that the holder was empty.
*sigh*
The dolmen is moving along (slowly, but moving) and last night I did a reflection color test to find out what concentration of TEA (triethanolamine) to use to get some interesting colors in the final hologram.
As a test I prepared some 2, 3, and 4% solutions of TEA and cut up a 4×6" piece of film into three sections.
the TEA was fleshly prepared and still warm and each piece of film was soaked for about a minute, squeegeed and left to dry for 30 minutes in my drying box.
The subject was a simple background that I could use to easily judge the differences in color.
After a 10s exposure the strips were developed in JD2 and bleached with EDTA and dried.
I ended up with a range of colors from yellow-red to gold that should work well in the final hologram.
At the moment I’m thinking of using a subtle range of colors rather than the more easily made red/green/orange I was thinking of. Something more along the lines of orange for the moon, golden for the terrain and a fire red for the inside of the dolmen where a fire might be.
With luck I’ll do the masters this weekend
It’s been a while since I’ve really been in the lab. After the first of the year I got really caught up in the Irish dancing events that Susan and I are involved with, did some travelling for work and then got sucked into the Irish dance St. Patrick’s "season."
Finally there’s a lull and I can get back to working on a dolmen hologram that I’ve had on the back-burner for three years.
For the latest Holography Forum contest I made a hologram of Snoopy and Woodstock.
I’d originally planned for the final hologram to be a bit different but I’m happy with what I’ve got.
Read on for the making of Friends.
Late last week I put together a shot of the fireworks from my original 4th of July hologram and the latest version of the flag into a two-color version that I’ll be selling as a limited edition of 100.
A few weeks ago I started work on a hologram inpired by Pirates of the Caribbean and began carving a medallion that I wanted to look like the medallion featured in the movie. Unfortunately my sculpting skills aren’t yet up to that task but I was able to produce a medallion that is more appropriate for a Day of the Dead celebration and set about making a hologram of that.
Back on June 5th I wrote about some problems producing a master two channel of a sand dollar. I’ve since worked out the problems and made a few copies.
February 17, 2006 7:30pm
Preliminary testing
Under very dim lighting I opened thecardboard mailer to find a 4×5” stack of film packed in a tightly fitting black plastic bag. Very tightly fitting. Getting the film stack back in was a pain. The film was sandwiched between two small pieces of cardboard. I haven’t counted to make sure there are 10 pieces of film but that’s what’s listed on the label.
I’ve been working on a penguin layout for several weeks now and finally got a good scene combined with the right lighting.
March of the Penguins was the obvious inspiration.