Which plates/film to buy

Simple answers are here! For Theory look in General Holography.
Locked
John Wagner

Which plates/film to buy

Post by John Wagner »

Hi all

I've decided to return to learning holography after a few years away from it. I have only tried single beam reflection holograms with a diode laser. I had a little success early on, I produced some dark but crisp holograms. I only used the Slavich materials, PFG-03, I was really put off by their shelf life. I posted a question on the forum a long time ago about fogging which apparently many of you guys had experienced.

I live down in New Zealand which makes getting materials tough. I had to order straight from Slavich as their was no distributor near me and the BB range of plates were not being produced when I was active. This meant paying a lot of money (nearly twice the cost was in shipping!!) for plates so to have them "expire" was a bit frustrating although I understand there are pre treatments available to help regenerate the plates.

A couple of questions:

I'm hoping to get back in to holography and was wondering what plates people would recommend. As I will end up paying more in freight than for the plates themselves I'm happy to get the more expensive plates if that is what people would recommend. I understand the Slavich plate and the colourholographic plates are the most common? Are there any strong opinions out there over which is "better".

What is the current state of diode holography? I was planning on purchasing the higher powered diode laser from Integraf but I see it is no longer available. Is there a reliable higher power diode laser that people are using?

Looking forward to hearing back from you guys.

John
Colin Kaminski

Which plates/film to buy

Post by Colin Kaminski »

I am in the lucky position that people send me holograms a lot. The brightest single beams I see are on BB640. I usually shoot on PFG-01 because it is so easy to deal with.

I still know of no plug and play high power diodes. I have gone to HeNe. There are some tricks to making a diode work but it involves monitering the diode and choosing the right time to expose. If you are willing to do this you can get about 50mw for under $150.
Tom B.

Which plates/film to buy

Post by Tom B. »

Though I have not been active for over year, my best and most consistent results have been with BB plates. For me they require a LOT of light even with TEA treatment, but results have been very good. Yves Gentet's Ultimate plates are also very good, and much more sensitive, but I have occasionally experienced problems with cosmetic defects, unforeseen chemistry problems etc. due to the small batch methods used. By now these problems have likely been solved, and Yves has always been responsive to complaints. Film? I don't know of any good film. Yves Gentet used to make Ultimate film until triacetatate base became obsolete.

My currrent jellyfish-like drift is toward homemade DCG with 488 nm lasers - I think that is teh way to go. Or preferably stick with 660 nm if something less fussy than TMG-MB-DCG comes along.
Locked