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#1
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kaleidoscope?
so this AM a friend came by to marvel at our old hex glass kaleiscope...
she looked and awed at the pretty patterns... i suggested to Patty that she take our newer Sony 5 Cybershot and see what she can get... the problems a 1) is this a Virtual image? and 2) is the set focal length of the Kaleidoscope to eye something that can get adapted to the Sony camera? (Like a tube or something) the pix are all blurred, and after downloading to Photoshop we can get neat patterns, but alas, not in focus! I don't wanna reinvent the wheel! I thought i knew enough about optics but experience here would help alot... I do know that a polarizing microscope can yield alot of nice pattern images, but is the cheap 50cent Kaleidoscope inherently different? Any suggestion(s) are appreciated... thanks jsz -- |
#2
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kaleidoscope?
On 2006-06-11, AND Books wrote:
so this AM a friend came by to marvel at our old hex glass kaleiscope... she looked and awed at the pretty patterns... i suggested to Patty that she take our newer Sony 5 Cybershot and see what she can get... the problems a 1) is this a Virtual image? and 2) is the set focal length of the Kaleidoscope to eye something that can get adapted to the Sony camera? (Like a tube or something) the pix are all blurred, and after downloading to Photoshop we can get neat patterns, but alas, not in focus! I don't wanna reinvent the wheel! I thought i knew enough about optics but experience here would help alot... I do know that a polarizing microscope can yield alot of nice pattern images, but is the cheap 50cent Kaleidoscope inherently different? Any suggestion(s) are appreciated... thanks jsz I don't think there are any optical elements in the 'cheap toy' type of kaleidoscope; just a sheet of shiny metal or plastic bent to form an angle, and a shallow tray of 'interesting shapes and colours' with a translucent backing. You see a pattern formed by the directly-visible bits of stuff and their reflections (and possibly reflections-of-reflections). An auto-focus camera may struggle to work out where to focus; the distance from the 'eye-hole' to the end of the instrument, would be very slightly more than the actual distance that needs to be focused on. That may be too short for some cameras to manage - the 'macro' setting may work better, if there is one. If you are prepared to sacrifice the kaleidoscope, it may be easier to get photographs of the patterns by arranging the tray of bits and the angled reflector in front of the camera, with an opaque covering to enclose them and the camera so that light only gets to the camera via the tray of bits and the reflector. You could then arrange distances to suit the lens. Getting the alignment of the parts, including the camera, 'just so', could be tricky. A web search for kaleidoscope photography should yield some interesting links ) Kaleidoscopes themselves can easily become something of an obsession; be warned! -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~ |
#3
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kaleidoscope?
Whiskers wrote:
On 2006-06-11, AND Books wrote: so this AM a friend came by to marvel at our old hex glass kaleiscope... she looked and awed at the pretty patterns... i suggested to Patty that she take our newer Sony 5 Cybershot and see what she can get... the problems a 1) is this a Virtual image? and 2) is the set focal length of the Kaleidoscope to eye something that can get adapted to the Sony camera? (Like a tube or something) the pix are all blurred, and after downloading to Photoshop we can get neat patterns, but alas, not in focus! I don't wanna reinvent the wheel! I thought i knew enough about optics but experience here would help alot... I do know that a polarizing microscope can yield alot of nice pattern images, but is the cheap 50cent Kaleidoscope inherently different? Any suggestion(s) are appreciated... thanks I don't think there are any optical elements in the 'cheap toy' type of kaleidoscope; just a sheet of shiny metal or plastic bent to form an angle, and a shallow tray of 'interesting shapes and colours' with a translucent backing. You see a pattern formed by the directly-visible bits of stuff and their reflections (and possibly reflections-of-reflections). An auto-focus camera may struggle to work out where to focus; the distance from the 'eye-hole' to the end of the instrument, would be very slightly more than the actual distance that needs to be focused on. That may be too short for some cameras to manage - the 'macro' setting may work better, if there is one. If you are prepared to sacrifice the kaleidoscope, it may be easier to get photographs of the patterns by arranging the tray of bits and the angled reflector in front of the camera, with an opaque covering to enclose them and the camera so that light only gets to the camera via the tray of bits and the reflector. You could then arrange distances to suit the lens. Getting the alignment of the parts, including the camera, 'just so', could be tricky. A web search for kaleidoscope photography should yield some interesting links ) Kaleidoscopes themselves can easily become something of an obsession; be warned! You could always fake one with Photoshop. -- Martin S. |
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