Debunking the color of Vaders Lenses for his ANH Helmet

[Too Much Garlic]

Any thoughts on the R2 eye and the X-Wing hangar visors?

 

[mverta]

Not yet.. step at a time. I have a couple of light propagation physicists that I do software development with looking at the Vader stuff now. There is absolutely no question they photograph in the red spectrum, and if we take the idea that they're "really" amber as fact, we're running simulations to determine what could cause the shift. It's not actually that hard; it's just physics, but it's math-intensive


_Mike

 

[Too Much Garlic]

True. And this is really cool what you're doing. I was just suggesting these two, as they are confirmed smoked grey and also has some of the reddish tint seen, so if they show the same characteristics in your tests... then that is an interesting thing. If they don't show the same characteristics... then it is a lot more clear that the Vader lenses was probably not made from the same colored material.

And at least I would get some serious rock solid confirmation on that, with what you find.

I know... I'm being a stubborn ass... but hey... :lol

 

[mverta]

NHM - it's a good suggestion, no doubt!

darthvaderv (or anyone with confirmed references) - help us refine our simulation:

This is a starting point for us to figure out what the lens material should look like, just sitting by itself in a blackbody environment over 50% gray plane, single-point emitter at 6500K.


If you have confirmed photographic reference (with color chart, I assume, otherwise how can you trust the color of the photo?), please correct this simulation in regards to color. (Assuming you have a calibrated monitor.) We can accept layterms (more gray, more color/saturation, more yellow, more red, darker, etc.)

Once we have what you suggest the color of these lenses is, we can combine it with a human head model (we have obtained BRDF data for human skin reflectance for a variety of races), along with several known light temperature emitters, and see the photographic result.

Thanks!

_Mike

 

[Lan-Ed-Tul]

just a thought, but what about amber lenses with a red car window tint film applied to either the front or backside. light shining through the front into the film on backside MIGHT give the appearance of a reddish hue.

 

[darthvaderv]

I'm honestly not trying to be difficult but I am not allowed to share that reference for a number of reasons. Sorry I hate saying that :thumbsdown

I have given my opinion as to what I believe they are.

I agree that they obviously look red in many shots but that is due to the camera, lights, and face reflection which has all been discussed IMO.

 

[mverta]

That's no problem, we can likely derive the color anyway. That's the beauty of physics.

_Mike

 

[mverta]

just a thought, but what about amber lenses with a red car window tint film applied to either the front or backside. light shining through the front into the film on backside MIGHT give the appearance of a reddish hue.

Yes, we've considered this, and other interference effects, but we're giving some credibility to the accounts that they're amber/yellow, not red - either from subsurface particles or coatings - and attempting to find a physically plausible reason for the wavelength shift.

_Mike

 

[lambotour]

Cool thread. Mike, I always thought you were just some dude with a vast knowledge of the English language, but your investigative skills and in depth knowledge of the subject matter have impressed me.:thumbsup I respect the amount of research you are willing to do and I commend you. I feel the same as you. Someone may already have the answer, but you want to know the whys and hows through scientific and practical applications. Thanks for your efforts and the comments from others.

I do, however; agree with both Paul and Gino with regard to the color of the lenses.

 

[SithLord]

And you had matched these wrinkles and scratches to screen captures from the Tantive scene? Did I get that right?

I matched a scratch on the right lens to the Tantive mask and the wrinkle on the left lens to the mask in a Death Star conference room image. It seems the wrinkle happened after the scratch as the toy promotion photo only has the scratch, not the wrinkle. Here's the wrinkle again...and it doesn't seem to be on the surface of the lens.

Here's the right eye scratch which I think is also on the inside...

 

[ArtisanProps]

Hey Mike I've just stumbled on this thread and really like what your doing..

My take is that they have always been an amber (tea color) like Paul, and Gino have said

I did a quick photoshop and it's by no means great I just wanted to try something
with a picture I have and here's how it came out with these settings..

using the lenses normal color like on the right, I added a slight hue that IMO
would represent the skin tone being seen through the mask..
Next I added a very small amount of blue because I believe the filters or the
lighting effect add a bluish tonal value to the movie
and finally I just darkened the lens a little to simulate what it might look like with
the dome on and the lens on the left is what I came up with
The amount of color I used was very low, but it looks very similiar to the pic
on the left

again this was just a quick experiment.. Hope I've helped a little

 

[darthjones]

Big time on the iced tea color - but maybe thinned out a bit. I used "bronze" plastic for my helmet, a stock color it seems.

And WOW on some of that eye scratches research!!! Dang!!!

 

[Onigiri]

I think it was due to conjuctivitis.
Seriously awesome thread...and remarkably civil. Im not a lighting expert by any stretch of the imagination but I was under the impression the lenses were amber. Having worn a Vader helmet Im pretty red faced and hot when I take it off after a bit and I just assumed that teh skin tone contributed to reddish hue. Regardless, this is a fascinating read

 

[darthvaderv]

Nice comparison Doug :thumbsup

 

[propcollector]

thanks doug for that information....great job

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I matched a scratch on the right lens to the Tantive mask and the wrinkle on the left lens to the mask in a Death Star conference room image. It seems the wrinkle happened after the scratch as the toy promotion photo only has the scratch, not the wrinkle. Here's the wrinkle again...and it doesn't seem to be on the surface of the lens.

Not to go too OT with this, but that's super cool. I didn't have good enough screen captures to match any of the scratches I concentrated on on the Elstree with the Tantive scenes or other scenes... guess you found some I didn't notice. (Been working on a theory over the last couple of days... may show it eventually in another thread, when I've found more to support the theory).

Definitely looking forward to seeing more of what Mverta comes up with.

 

[ArtisanProps]

Thanks a lot

This is definately an experiment that would be best tried in a real world environment
just to veryify the photoshop results

 

[mverta]

Doug -

I get the spirit of what you're after, but it doesn't quite work that way because you're not truly adding or subtracting wavelengths in a contributory sense as would happen with actual light beams, you're just brute force rolling the final composite around in the spectrum. In other words, there's no Photoshop way to approximate dispersion or intereference, you have to actually fire light particles in a physically-accurate simulator to know (this is what we're doing.) I'm curious about your reference photos, though... what are they? Is there an actor in in the first one, but no actor in the second one?

_Mike

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I'm curious about your reference photos, though... what are they? Is there an actor in in the first one, but no actor in the second one?

From what I can tell the one on the left is an ANH screen capture, whereas the one on the right is a picture of the ESB stunt helmet prop.

 

[mverta]

What I need to know is if this ruby coloring is happening without human skin contribution or not.


_Mike