Beam and Dot Photos

I've been messing around trying to take better pictures of the laser beams and dots using my not very good camera, The dot was very easy to get using laser safety glasses as a filter......



But the beam not so much.......



Are there any tips or suggestion anyone has for taking beam shots with a digi camera ?

For taking beamshots you'd want to avoid facing the dot(obviously) as that will easily overpower the light coming from beam. What you can do is invest in a good $30 fogger to bring out the beam and then you can take pictures of both the beam & dot at the same time

Nice pictures :kewlpics:

-Alex

Yep, facing away from the dot helps like Alex suggested. Also the beam is noticeably brighter when facing the aperture due to scattering. If you must face towards it, then use a black matte (burnproof ) surface to dim the dot down.
Fog is a brilliant tool, but with high powered lasers it can easily lead to overexposure if not careful.
Brucemir, Radim and ArcticDude to name a few may have some helpful suggestions. What camera do you have, as it may help us to understand your technical limitations.
That dot is lovely and round BTW. :beer:

I finally figured out a setting to use to take a picture of the beam in the night sky and at the same time see the laser host for some context ! In reality the beam looks much thinner, It's hard to take a picture holding the camera still and hold the laser to but the pictures are getting better......

As mentioned above, try to point the dot out of picture. The best results of beam visibility are if you take a pic close to the beam in direction (with angle, not completely in the direction) of source. But be extremely careful, not only to eyes but to camera as well. This is extremely dangerous and you might damage or kill your camera easily even with scattered/difussed light. Also avoid or reduce to have output aperture on pic as it is like a dot - too much light. Also try to set longer exposure (best on manual mode - if you have remote control on bulb, if not try to set timer not to move with camera during expo and set some time - you can even try to cover lens as replacement of remote control), maybe fog or smoke. I also use a lens hood to reduce stray light and likelihood of hitting camera lens. And as I use long expo (on tripod or fixed position) I use small aperture (higher F number) and small ISO to reduce noise. However the smaller aperture and the lower ISO the more time exposure you need. And do not forget to focus before.

Edit: Nice pic - I think you have got it already.

Edit 2: Check my pic The Laser Sun (in opening post of my laserpainting thread) I used the tricks mentioned above and one more - I hit the tree just with the part of the beam section at its edge not to over expose the dot and to get beam with dot on one pic. And no smoke or fog were used - just composition slightly facing towards source of beam. Also this created an illusion of real sun as the tree was hit on carefully selected place - edge.

Edit 3: If you use higher F numbers, the point light sources - like dot - create nice star effects (due to size and shape of camera aperture), just do not use too high F number or you get interference pattern of light bending on camera aperture. More the issue of coherent light than normal light.

Edit 4: Safety tip - cover camera lens during laser composition setup - once you are sure the camera lens cannot be hit go for exposure.

There you are, a laser photographer's advice for you.
That's a lot better Accutronitis, nice shot! :beer:

Thanks, Oliver.

You're welcome Radim.
Keep at it Accutronitis, you'll get envy worthy pics in no time.

I just want everyone to see what I see !

You wait until you have to photograph 589,561,473,488 etc. Then you really want people to see what you see, as it is hard to get the colour balance right.
Good job so far.

Thanks But I'm only about half way to getting a picture of what I really see but I'm moving in the right direction !

I wouldn't worry. I'm terrible at photography. Some of my beam shots was with a hired DSLR and they are still not brilliant.
It takes practice and skill, which isn't gained straight away.

If your camera supports RAW - use it, jpeg is not suitable as you have to balance white and do all the settings on camera and you loose data due to compression by any edit you do. Blue color is the hardest to photograph IMO.

You might find usefull my earlier post:

Radim said:

Well, its a bit tricky. Of course manufacturers tend to capture what human eye see by their cameras. But there exist some color spaces (like for example CMYK for printed stuff - subtractive mixing, sRGB and Adobe RGB for displayed stuff - additive mixing). Cameras use some RGB spaces, however the color space of human perception is much wider than most commercial technology can capture and display. For example, when I took some pics of 520 nm and 532 nm, they look about the same, however you see them different. And the blue is the most tricky in my experience so far.

Also human brain just adjusts color perception according to lighting, that's why you have to balance white differently for example under lightbulbs and under daylight lighting.

I fight with that stuff, when I'm adjusting my artworks to look like by human eye as much as possible, but with precise laser wavelengths it is just not possible due to current technology imperfections.

Check this (look for 520 nm where it lays):


(source is wiki - just click on pic for more info)


Regarding IR - it is not supposed that IR is present much in most cases that much to influence picture too mich in most cases: In cheap cameras (like mobile phones) you can clearly see it, however DSLR and more serious cameras are IMO somehow IR filtered, how would you take pic of fire for example? There is a lot of "heat" radiation - IR. Try it with mobile and with some DSLR and you will probably see the difference.

Just for interest look here: https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/144388-how-to-turn-your-dslr-into-a-full-spectrum-super-camera

Very interesting photography under IR.

Click to expand...

Original post is here.

In addition I post some tips & tricks in my laserpainting thread as well.

Very useful Radim.
I usually take pics with my phone, but I will bare this in mind the next time I use a DSLR.

It is just more work with RAW as you need to make pics from it in post processing sw like photoshop (it does not really make sense to take hundreds pics and spend week on them - quality has to come over quantity when using RAW). But it is worth to do to get the best from your camera.

Edit: In terms of color space most devices like monitors use sRGB, but I turned to take pics in AdobeRGB and switch them to sRGB in computer as I do not have monitor for AdobeRGB. Tip: For editing it is wise to calibrate monitor or at least use highest brightness and good light conditions. But these are just kind of details for most users.

Yes, more work but worth it in the end. Although, I would love a point and shoot camera that matches our eye perfectly.