Green lines are fascinating

[142laser]

The red laser goes right through the green laser mirrors. The other way would work also but since green power is limited to say 3 mW and red isn't... I have been tempted to rig this up on a bench permanently but you can get nice yellow with the color mixing.

[The_Doctor]

Not to mention sticking blue through both of them... Can't speak for the green, but blue makes it through the little red HeNe that Jem gave me. You didn't say how much red...

[absolom7691]

Absolom, that rendering of 520 is as good as I've ever seen. Also, while the difference between the other two is a little bit stronger in life than it is in your picture, the character is there. My guess is just two adjustments will be enough to bring out more: saturation up by 14%, perhaps 24%, and brightness down 9% and contrast up 14% at same time, both after the saturation, not before. (Too much saturation, especially on strong contrasts, does Weird Things in Paintshop, and likely other digital tools...).

I probably took about 50 different pictures and kept playing with the exposure time and the fstop until I got it looking as close to how I was seeing it as possible. Even then, I can tell a difference in the color from my laptop monitor to my desktop and my phone.... I might wash it through Photoshop and try the changes you mentioned.

I'm only just learning to photograph lasers properly and it is certainly tricky, especially with scanned and mixed RGB lasers, where shutter speed is so critical to scan speed. If anyone has any tips, they would be appreciated

I typically shoot scanned images at ISO100 at 1/16 and stop down quite a bit until the colors are rich and not washed out. That is when I am projecting onto a white surface. Swamidog projects onto a matte black surface to reduce glare. I have only tried that with video and it works well. The colors are rich and not washed out. I may try this soon with stills.

[The_Doctor]

...until the colors are rich and not washed out.

That works. It's all I ever did, just made sure that somehow I got the dynamic range into the image somehow. All the PaintSop and PhotoShop in the world can only work with what it gets. One thing I use is a 400W metal halide lamp, sometimes, if I'm working with any other very strong light source. Doesn't work always, but it's good to have it around. A very light dispersed fog helps with beams too.. No suprise there, except perhaps how very light it needs to be...

[Galvonaut]

Gosh, 1/16 is a hell-of-a long time, especially hand held. I will start a new thread of photographing lasers as I've been practising along with moving subjects with success at 1/60 sec.

[The_Doctor]

I never got the hang of photographing moving stuff. It's weird, I spend a long time getting really good at still images, but never got any good with motion.

[absolom7691]

At 1/15*, I use a tripod and a "cable release".

[Galvonaut]

As a general rule most people can hand hold down to the focal length of the lens, so with a 50mm lens, 1/50th of a second. With practice you can shoot down to 1/30 or 1/25 but you need to know how to brace your body and when to push the button (on the natural pause between breathing in and out, like shooting a rifle).

[absolom7691]

I never got the hang of photographing moving stuff. It's weird, I spend a long time getting really good at still images, but never got any good with motion.

My specialty is lightning and astrophotography. Most of my sky pictures are 5~10 minute exposures and my lightning exposures are around 16 seconds or less, depending on the time of day and how dark the sky is.

[The_Doctor]

Nice. I like pictures of lightning. Haven't taken any but I ought to try. I use a timer, I don't think the Canon A75 will do remote trigger, but I might be wrong, I just bought two cheaply second hand. Great value, but I never read a manual.. Timings in the few-seconds length they do ok though, so I might try my chances. I do practise taking clear shots while holding a camera, but even then it's still images, timing to catch motion is just something I never found myself wanting to do. When things are moving a lot I just watch them, and usually haven't even got a camera with me.. I did get some good pictures at a Bristol balloon fiesta once though. And balloons don't move very fast.