Soap Bubble Wiki
Soap Bubble Wiki
20170729 0447 labeled lighting setup

Provisional lighting setup described below.

20170729 0441 10to1 40to1 SideBySide

An image taken with this lighting setup. The color profiles of these different dilutions are easy to read with this setup.

 

Just a quick note documenting the simple inexpensive lighting setup that I have cobbled together for reliably capturing bubble colors for doing indoor color profile studies.

The results are excellent in terms of capturing the colors. However, I am finding that the methods that I've tried for making bubbles that I can photograph with the setup are less sensitive to differences in solutions than my standard outdoor tri-string setups. It turns out that the tri-strings I use (and maybe reasonably sized tri-strings in general) are quite sensitive to differences in 'surfactancy' or dilution than the longevity test setup or blowing bubbles and holding them on a plastic wand.

So, my search continues for finding an indoor method of making bubbles/films that is as effective for documenting the differences between solutions as tri-strings.

THE SETUP


The elements of this setup are:

  • a very bright LED work light. This one is a 3-foot light that generates 3200 lumens. I'd really like to use two.
  • PVC pipe to make the frame
  • milky translucent painter's dropcloth as a diffuser
  • a black piece of foamcore for the background
  • iPhone on a tripod

This is set up in the garage. I turn off all the ambient lights when I am ready to photograph/video. Otherwise a lot of the garage shows up reflected in the bubbles. The ambient light also washes the colors out a bit.

20170729 0448 setup distant view

From another angle

 

When photographing the longevity test setup, I set longevity apparatus so that the apparatus is in a vertical plane behind the work light's so that the worklight is mostly reflecting off of the front surface of the bubble. Otherwise, you get confusing reflections from the back wall of the bubble.