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October 1, 2003

This morning I shot a master of the Terminator head that I borrowed from a different coworker.  Here's a shot of the real image:

It looks especially bizarre since the real image is inside out.

I also set up to shoot a test of the One Ring from Harmony Gold (unfortunately you can no longer buy it outside of South Africa, at least not through Harmony Gold and it's doubled in price since Susan gave it to me for my birthday) and here's a projection of that one.  Perhaps tomorrow I can shoot a full-size master.

Once again, I'll post more shots when I make a copy.

Here's the table layout for the One Ring.

And a shot of the virtual image.

October 8, 2003

I've been working a lot on Mission Impossible, so things holographic have slowed a bit.  I'm happy with the layout and results of the One Ring master so I've started working on a gift for Susan.  These notes won't be posted until after our anniversary on Oct 28th but I'll be writing as though they're going up live.

Last night I started working on what will be a two-channel hologram where the first image is of the kissing couple that Susan bought us for our anniversary a few years ago and the second image will be of our wedding rings and her (new) engagement ring.

I'm using techniques that I learned from Lon Moore.  I'm creating a master H1 that contains two images, one on the left side and one on the right.  I'll be masking off half the plate for each exposure so that when the plate is developed, it contains two independent images.  I'm certain I won't be able to get the image registration as exact as Lon but I'm planning things out enough so that it should be very close.

Here's a few shots of the couple, one lit by flash and one lit by laser.

Here's a shot of my second exposure/mask test.  For this I didn't change the subject but just wanted to see how close I could get the second piece of masking tape to line up with the first.  The notch in the top was made as a control to make sure that the tape was blocking all the light.  The first test that I did came out developed as though the entire sheet of film had been fogged either through light exposure or chemical fog.  The second turned out just fine and while one side appears to have been exposed slightly longer, there's only a slight line between the two that won't show up in transfer.

October 10, 2003

Didn't have time to try any tests yesterday morning because I was at work until 1am.  This morning though, I put another test through the table and in this case I just added a new object to the mix, a gold celtic ring as a crown on the man (because gravity would have caused it to fall off the woman.  I also added a velvet curtain to the background so that the people wouldn't just hang in the air.

Because of the way I masked off the film between exposures, the ring disappears as you move from left to right.

The bottom image is of the test from the 8th.  The image shifting is an artifact of the way they were photographed.

After completing that test I set about figuring out a way to change subjects without causing the background curtain to shift.  Something that would undoubtedly happen if I had to replace the entire scene or move the curtain to put the rings in place.

I decided to try pushing a mounting rod through some cardboard and hanging the curtain off that. There are actually two pieces of fabric that make up the curtain and the rod can be seen if you look closely at the picture.  Once the couple have been exposed, I'll mount the rings on the rod and shoot the second channel.

In this shot are:

1. A lens in the lower left, expanding the object light (which is causing the couple to appear reddish).
2. The plate holder at bottom center.
3. The object holder at right, mostly obscured by black velvet.  The velvet is partially covering the couple because their legs won't be part of the final image and I didn't want light from there interfering with the rest of the image.
4. The curtain (duh).  This is hung off some cardboard (which doubles as a stray-light blocker) that has a black metal rod pushing through the center which will hold our rings for the second channel
5. Object beam transfer mirror near the upper right.

October 11, 2003

I had to get up at 5am to update some files at work and fix the broken build there so I stayed up and finished the master for Susan's gift.

I shot the first half of the plate with the couple (15m settling with 15s exposure), masked off the first and uncovered the second half and stuck the plate in a box while I put the rings on the stand.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo (I'll do better documenting next time) but this involved hot-gluing the rings together where the glue wouldn't be seen but so that the inscriptions could be partially read.  Once they were firmly together I put some hot glue on the stand and held the rings on it until the glue cooled.

I then put the plate back in the holder, let it settle for 20 minutes and exposed for 15 seconds.

Before tearing everything down (I didn't want Susan to see the setup) I got a shot of the couple attached to the stand.  Yes, hot glue is a useful and versatile way to attach delicate objects to a stand.  I certainly wouldn't use clamps.

October 12, 2003

I was at work until 2am this morning, so no real hologramming today.  I did prep a few sheets of glass for upcoming masters.  I'm going to have to wait a bit to do the elephants and dolmen since I need to figure out the layouts for those.  I may not have mentioned the elephants before but Susan's parents loaned us some elephants that had been carved out of ivory something like 40 years ago.  They're a perfect size to make holograms of and I'm working on the designs for a diorama now.

In the meantime I'm making relatively simple masters for future copying.  I'm going to have to tear that down soon so I can copy Susan's gift but I want to get two more done before that happens.

The next master will be of two peeps.  Yes, peeps.  I've got a yellow peep I saved from Easter a white ghost peep that I bought a few weeks ago.  I'll get pictures later but I'm planning on another two-channel of the regular peep turning into a ghost.  Silly, but I think it'll be fun to look at.

The second master will be of the terminator again.  I accidentally broke one of the masters I made (naturally it would be the one that many people liked the most) and I've re-borrowed the terminator so I can make a new master.  This time I'm going to do a two-channel of the terminator turning his head to follow the viewer.

October 13, 2003

This morning I quickly set things up to do a master of the peeps and terminator.  The peeps didn't turn out too well because I didn't want to take the time to set the light ratios and the peeps were highly reflective.  On the other hand the terminator turned out very nice.

Frame 1 of the peeps.  Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of frame 2.

The terminator, ready for shooting.

These are hotter than in real life.  Still need some practice getting shots of transmissions.

I'll post more in-progress shots of the peeps when I re-master them.  In the meantime I've torn down the master setup so I can make some copies.

Present
2003: Feb | Mar | Apr | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
2004: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
2005: Blog
2006: Blog
2007: Blog