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Hi all,
Finished a roll of Fujifilm Superia 200 recently, a bit different to the last film I shot, this one tends to have a green bias, higher ISO and was also expired so these are a little more grainy and rough than my previous set.
Some of these came out really well so I'd like to show a few of my favourites below (well, a bit more than a few
)
Starting off with an "all the lasers" shot, I've cropped this one slightly to improve composition. The camera was in between the "V" shape of the beams and if you look carefully, on the far right is a very weak line of 593.5:
This one isn't technically great, especially as I messed up the positioning of the Rigel, but I like the rainbow-like glow from the apertures so I uploaded it anyway:
Better version of the above and fixed the positioning of the Rigel:
Carpet beams! Film is again showing its love for red by overcooking them substantially:
Fired up the 445 and 532 and popped the mirrors in place. I'm glad this one turned out good as the 445 briefly terminated on my shin-high Dr Martens and made a small melt mark!!!
(thankfully the damage was not severe and I smelled it before too long)
Some red and my 405 - film colours it very similarly to 473 due to its susceptibility to picking up UV & deep violet. EDIT: spotted the 593.5 line!
Most wavelengths here - can't remember whether I just used the two reds or whether one of them is the Rigel!
Decided to do a bounce shot. Notice how the thin 593.5 line is only visible on the return angle, which goes to show how much brighter a laser beam is when it's comin' atcha!
I then got back to the mirrors and spent quite some time setting them up as closely aligned as possible to create a miniature "vacuum" for the laser to bounce back and forth in. The divergence of both my reds was quite good so despite travelling quite a long distance the beams stayed tight:
I then added some other colours, 593.5, 405 and 445, I think:
A few weeks after I took these I then took a trip out to a very dark part of the countryside to do some stargazing. For the first time since I got into the hobby, I had a proper opportunity to shine my lasers into the sky and onto hillsides without the nearby population thinking there was an alien invasion.
Here I used my 635, 532 and 445 and you can see the beams amongst stars:
The film's susceptibility to reds made the 635 look on par with the other two lasers. It got cold very quickly and in the relatively short time we were there, ice started to form on top of the car. Despite this my 532 still shone bright although it was mode hopping like nothing I've ever seen.
A similar shot this time, but shining the lasers away from the camera into a more dense area of stars:
From the top of the car:
And one from behind, laser antennae?!
Although we went primarily to stargaze, neither of us got particularly great shots of the stars themselves. The area didn't seem as dark as it did last time we went and was surprisingly busy (car headlights...) so we were often interrupted. It was a great opportunity to use the lasers though and clearly other people thought so too, sound carries incredibly well in quiet areas like this and I quite clearly heard a distant murmur of people exclaiming at the colours when I turned the lasers on :bowdown:
As ever, thanks for looking!
Finished a roll of Fujifilm Superia 200 recently, a bit different to the last film I shot, this one tends to have a green bias, higher ISO and was also expired so these are a little more grainy and rough than my previous set.
Some of these came out really well so I'd like to show a few of my favourites below (well, a bit more than a few
)Starting off with an "all the lasers" shot, I've cropped this one slightly to improve composition. The camera was in between the "V" shape of the beams and if you look carefully, on the far right is a very weak line of 593.5:
This one isn't technically great, especially as I messed up the positioning of the Rigel, but I like the rainbow-like glow from the apertures so I uploaded it anyway:
Better version of the above and fixed the positioning of the Rigel:
Carpet beams! Film is again showing its love for red by overcooking them substantially:
Fired up the 445 and 532 and popped the mirrors in place. I'm glad this one turned out good as the 445 briefly terminated on my shin-high Dr Martens and made a small melt mark!!!
(thankfully the damage was not severe and I smelled it before too long)
Some red and my 405 - film colours it very similarly to 473 due to its susceptibility to picking up UV & deep violet. EDIT: spotted the 593.5 line!
Most wavelengths here - can't remember whether I just used the two reds or whether one of them is the Rigel!
Decided to do a bounce shot. Notice how the thin 593.5 line is only visible on the return angle, which goes to show how much brighter a laser beam is when it's comin' atcha!
I then got back to the mirrors and spent quite some time setting them up as closely aligned as possible to create a miniature "vacuum" for the laser to bounce back and forth in. The divergence of both my reds was quite good so despite travelling quite a long distance the beams stayed tight:
I then added some other colours, 593.5, 405 and 445, I think:
A few weeks after I took these I then took a trip out to a very dark part of the countryside to do some stargazing. For the first time since I got into the hobby, I had a proper opportunity to shine my lasers into the sky and onto hillsides without the nearby population thinking there was an alien invasion.
Here I used my 635, 532 and 445 and you can see the beams amongst stars:
The film's susceptibility to reds made the 635 look on par with the other two lasers. It got cold very quickly and in the relatively short time we were there, ice started to form on top of the car. Despite this my 532 still shone bright although it was mode hopping like nothing I've ever seen.
A similar shot this time, but shining the lasers away from the camera into a more dense area of stars:
From the top of the car:
And one from behind, laser antennae?!
Although we went primarily to stargaze, neither of us got particularly great shots of the stars themselves. The area didn't seem as dark as it did last time we went and was surprisingly busy (car headlights...) so we were often interrupted. It was a great opportunity to use the lasers though and clearly other people thought so too, sound carries incredibly well in quiet areas like this and I quite clearly heard a distant murmur of people exclaiming at the colours when I turned the lasers on :bowdown:
As ever, thanks for looking!
Last edited:
. Since I've scratched the surface of astrophotography a little bit lately myself, the set of the few night sky pics you've produced there, remind me somewhat of this activity. The overall grain evokes as some of them shots could well have been used as posters to some old school independent sci-fi movies (just my quick thinking here
). 
