Essential oils on water -- interference films

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DimaDD
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Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2019 12:29 pm
Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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Essential oils on water -- interference films

Post by DimaDD »

A few years ago, I proposed another object for similar interference images: thin layers of essential oils on the water. They live longer and are easier to obtain. I spent many hours (and even days) experimenting with different oils for aromatherapy taken from the nearest pharmacy. It was very exciting, I got a lot of fun! I also tried to shoot video, as the movement of developing structures was also impressive (from slow motion to cyclons and hurricanes with frantically spinning cores). But video capabilities of my old camera were very poor and I abandoned these attempts.

Unfortunately, I don't have hi-res images at hands right now, although some moire patterns are very fine.
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Canon Powershot G10 + Raynox DCR-250...
Last edited by DimaDD on Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Dmitry, thank you for the post.

I have split this posting to a thread of its own, to keep separate the discussions of persistent oil films on planar water surface versus transient films on curved surfaces of bubbles.

This also puts your pictures at the top of the new thread, where they will be more easily seen. I also tweaked the formatting of your post, to put a little space between the images, which otherwise ran together in a bit confusing way.

--Rik
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DimaDD
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2019 12:29 pm
Location: St.Petersburg, Russia
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Post by DimaDD »

Thank you, Rik!

So I have to add some more details! :D

The technique is very simple: take a glass jar full of warm (or hot) water, put one drop of essential oil, adjust lighting... and observe! :shock:

1. I've found that oils of conifers (pine, fir, juniper etc.) behave better. Although citrus oils are good too, you can just squeeze them out of their peels.

2. It's better to use light source which spectrum have distinct lines (e.g. fluorescent energy saving lamps), because it demonstrate prominent color banding even for thicker layers (where continuous smooth spectra show so-called "whites of high orders").

3. Colors are not so bright (comparing with soap bubbles and crossed polarizers), so you have to enhance them in image editor.

This is the scheme of my primitive setup:

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