Debunking the color of Vaders Lenses for his ANH Helmet

Afaik DarthJones said they were clear lenses with some transparent brown foil heated to the back. Could be wrong about the details, so I think it's better to just ask him.

Is there any more to this story ?
Was this lense in place on a face or loose ? was it an ANH production used helmet or the one seen in the ESB promo which looks browny amber ?
 
Have, been flushed, lenses didn't change color over it.
What color lenses do you use? Lenses with color? Have you been photographed in harsh studio lights? Do your lenses always appear the same color - only worth answering if you wear light colored or grey lenses.

Is there any more to this story ?
Was this lense in place on a face or loose ? was it an ANH production used helmet or the one seen in the ESB promo which looks browny amber ?
Loose, as they most likely changed the lenses during the tours to the original grey. This is however speculation based on photo-evidence, but may not be conclusive - as with everything else about this.

Again... would be easier to just ask DJ to comment.
 
What color lenses do you use? Lenses with color? Have you been photographed in harsh studio lights? Do your lenses always appear the same color - only worth answering if you wear light colored or grey lenses.


Loose, as they most likely changed the lenses during the tours to the original grey. This is however speculation based on photo-evidence, but may not be conclusive - as with everything else about this.

Again... would be easier to just ask DJ to comment.

Hang on the original lenses were grey then swapped for brown for filming then swapped back to grey again ?
 
What color lenses do you use? Lenses with color? Have you been photographed in harsh studio lights? Do your lenses always appear the same color - only worth answering if you wear light colored or grey lenses.

GRAY standard lenses. They make gray shadows, grayish muted light, and red somehow doesn't magically appear. I know, how strange.
 
Hang on the original lenses were grey then swapped for brown for filming then swapped back to grey again ?
Well, we've seen pre-production pictures that show that the lenses are clear plastic or grey. Since we don't always see that in the movie and since Dave Prowse said they darkened the lenses, it is possible that they added this brown foil or whatever it was to the back of the lenses, but found that it was too dark to see during the tours, as it wasn't in a brightly lit set, which is why we see later/tour pictures with grey lenses again - these grey lenses where IN the helmet when it was molded for ESB.
 
i think this is going the wrong way...lets get back to finding out for sure what color that was used.
And you haven't done a search on how many threads are on here about this very subject? Too many. No definitive answers. And you can't use color-graded screen captures.

The only real connection to real ANH lenses is what DJ said. Nearly anything else is just speculation.
 
Sorry, didn't mean to sound so harsh. We just had many threads about this and we never really got a definitive answer in those... but I do hope we do now.

One fact is: they were grey/clear in pre-production and they were grey/clear after production. What color they were during production is anyone's guess, but as mentioned: DJ seems to have gotten the closest to the answer.
 
Oh hey gang! Just to state - I saw an ILM er take the eyes out of an ANH era helmet - widow's peak, small chin vent, etc. And indeed they were amber colored as if took the brown glass of a beer bottle and made it so thin that it appeared more yellowish than brown - and yes, maybe a light gel melted to the back of some other clear plastic? Not sure...
 
Oh hey gang! Just to state - I saw an ILM er take the eyes out of an ANH era helmet - widow's peak, small chin vent, etc. And indeed they were amber colored as if took the brown glass of a beer bottle and made it so thin that it appeared more yellowish than brown - and yes, maybe a light gel melted to the back of some other clear plastic? Not sure...

That's interesting do you know though if the lense was what was in place during filming or could this have been the helmet in the ESB poster shown earlier in this thread because those lenses look how you describe ?
 
what is prowses email I will ask him if he remembers...If it was red then everything that he looked at would be red.Also thanks darth jones for that information
 
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There is a BBC radio interview with Prowse that I had posted at The Den awhile back where Prowse talks about wearing the helmet and in particular, seeing through the dark lenses. Apparently they were so dark at one point that he knocked Guiness over a few times during the duelling sequence. I'll see if I can find the link....

Keep in mind though that his memory has not proven to be the greatest when it comes to the costume details....however, he did look through the lenses for months, so you would think...
 
I recently checked the lenses in photo reference to see if they were changed from the Tantive IV scenes to the Elstree photo and it appears they were not. But I noticed wrinkles on the inside of the left lens...and they became more noticable as time went on...corroborating the suggestion that there was possibly a tinted film of some kind inside the lens.
 
And you can't use color-graded screen captures.

I'm curious what photographic phenomenon would render this useless? In other words, say for argument's sake we had a Macbeth color chart in the frame along with Vader, which we know correlative RGB values from, and can extrapolate a tonality bias from. We do this in digital grading everyday, and to my knowledge, no particular frequencies or materials are exempt from being affected along with everything else in the frame. The use of polarizing filters might be an exception, but in this case none were used. No matter what coloring filters might have been present on lights or camera lenses, the effect can be compensated out and true color recaptured... (?)


_Mike
 
Interesting... I would think you could as well....I would guess that knowing the original color temperature of the lighting would help in calibrating the image?
 
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