I found your website a few days ago, while researching macro work. I was astounded at how damn cool your laser rig was, and the amount of forethought that went into the construction of such a device.
Small world when I find you posting here Nice work, the rig is incredible.
Soenda wrote:
That first one is brilliant. You may turn bees into everyone's favorite cuddly insect
Next day's we get beautiful weather so that I hope to capture new insects!
This background ( now a little piece green cardboard) is connected to the laserframe, about 17 cm after the focus point. The 2 flashes illuminate this background. Nexttime I will experimenting with several structures and colors. This give a better contrast. Step by step my laserunit come better and better!
I really like the pictures, they are amazing...
I just read the entire story on your website: this is incredible: you put an enormous amount of energy and creativity into this project. The results are fantastic... I assume you were/are an electronics engineer to be able to develop all that by yourself: if I may ask a question: how long did it take to develop the whole system ?
Congratulations for the creativity and the pictures !!!
Keep shooting.
gugs wrote:
I assume you were/are an electronics engineer to be able to develop all that by yourself: if I may ask a question: how long did it take to develop the whole system ?
Most of time was the electronic design and montage. This take 3 months. The first release of the laserframe 1 month, but now this version is the fourth generation.
The functions are programmed to the Altera hardware CPLD chip. This design take also 2-3 weeks, but regularly the are small upgrades. Yes I was working into the R&D electronics for 26 years and before this I was 15 years into the mechanics R&D. I started this project on December 2004 and the first testes are from juni 2005. Now the unit works nice, time now to walk into the nature and to take beautify pictures!
I am very impressed.
Why above me but brilliant.
I hope you do not mind if I ask,
-- how long did this creative project take.
--cost?
--Can the average fool like me learn how to do this?
-- I have a Ham license but have forgotten all the wiring sturff.
Regardless - You are creative, and the end result is great pictures.
SJMD wrote:
-- how long did this creative project take.
--cost?
--Can the average fool like me learn how to do this?
-- I have a Ham license but have forgotten all the wiring sturff.
Look my posting above, most of the answers be there. I forget how to build the external shutter. Thats not easy, but an alternative is to buy a commercial shutter like the Uniblitz. The electronics are very complex so you need experience to build this and you need multilayer prints to hold the fine pitch Altera CPLD chip. Also you need experience to program several functions into the chip. The software tools are available free of charge. If you have all this experiences and patience then its easy!
My cost was very low. The old shutter was cheap and I had a multilayer testboard available. I worked 5 months for the first generation and 3 more months for the upgrades. Now the unit is stable. I was 35 years radio amateur ( ON5DK ) but I give up the licence!
I like the background idea...this contraption of yours is getting better and better. Thanks for keeping us informed!
BTW, did you see a spike in traphic to your site a couple of weeks ago? Should have, made it on to fark.com ... sites normally get taken down do to high bandwidth when that happens.
_evt_ wrote:
BTW, did you see a spike in traphic to your site a couple of weeks ago? Should have, made it on to fark.com ... sites normally get taken down do to high bandwidth when that happens.
Yes, this was the high speed photography section. In one week 180.000 clicks on the intro page, 35.000 clicks on the flying insects and 25.000 on the homepage. I d'nt have received the bill but I guess the bandwidth was over 800Gb. Generally this must be free of extra charge from my provider.....
My God man...you came close to the 1TB level...I would search the fark archives to help prove you're not to blame to your ISP. I should have searched harder for your email address to let you know when I saw it.
Hope you can keep the site up and keep posting, you may want to consider doing some ads by Google otherwise if you notice the trafic staying up (it was probably a spike, but worth keeping track of). Hate to be the one to say that, but if all else fails....
Nice work, the rig is incredible.