Idea pitch: Electrochromic glass shutter, would it be possible?

[Xifoideus]

Dear reader,

I like to adapt various lenses, including projector lenses. However these lenses dont have a shutter and neither has my camera (Linhof V Technica). A lens like the 400mm F4 AV-Xenotar would be nice to adapt, but I would need an etreme large Shutter for that.
I could use a 4x5 focal plane shutter camera or a guillotine shutter but I would like other options. Thats when I tought of Electrochromic glass.
Would it be possible to use Electrochromic glass as a shutter?

There could be large pro's:
-Fast shutter speed with electronic (remote) trigger
-Large shutter size
-Could also be used as ND filter?

Downsides:
-Light leak becouse the glass is not 100% dimmable?
-Maybe big electronic components to get the glass to dimm fast?

Could it work? Could it be done?

[Scyg]

From what I've seen, electrochromic glass isn't sufficiently opaque. But maybe there's some new cutting-edge technology that could make it work - if there is, an ePackard shutter would certainly be interesting.

[Havoc]

A Kerr Cell? A blank tft screen? But all are based on polarisation so light loss is at least 50%.

On the other hand as film is so slow I don't need fast speed shutters but very long time shutters.

[C. D. Keth]

Your idea is similar to a couple types of shutters used in high speed photography. That small amount of light leak is a small but constant problem.

Here is an excerpt from an article by Andrew Davidhazy, the former chair of the photographic technology department at RIT. The full text is on his website: http://www.davidhazy.org/andpph/text-hs-overview.html


“Non-conventional High speed shutters

Kerr cells and Pockels cells are sometimes used when the goal is to achieve very short exposure times. The former is a liquid medium that aligns the plane of polarization of light in one particular direction. It consists of a glass cell holding the active ingredient (nitrobenzene) which is placed between two polarizers and lined up so that their axes of polarization are at right angles to each other. Therefore no light passes through the system.

However, when two electrodes placed in the liquid are energized they cause the plane of polarization of the incident beam to rotate and match the plane of polarization of the second polarizer. This allows light to pass through the system until the electrodes are disconnected. Exposure times in the nanosecond range are possible with such shutters. But, there is a matter of light efficiency. They are not very good in this respect and such shuttering is suitable for events that are highly luminous or where lots of light can be provided but otherwise they are a somewhat impractical for general purpose high speed applications. They are used primarily in weapons and nuclear research applications.

A Pockels cell is similar to the Kerr cell except that the active material is a solid instead of a liquid. Another similar shutter is the Faraday shutter that responds to the presence of an electrically induced magnetic field.

Since there is always a small amount of light that leaks through the crossed polarizers as used in all of these shutters, generally a second, mechanical, capping shutter is used to exclude light from the camera interior previous to and after the event is photographed.”


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[Bob Salomon]

Possible loss of image quality shooting through glass.
Possible loss of light from the glass.
Possible flare from the glass.

[Dan Fromm]

Possible loss of image quality shooting through glass.
Possible loss of light from the glass.
Possible flare from the glass.

Funny, all of our lenses contain glass.

[C. D. Keth]

Possible loss of image quality shooting through glass.
Possible loss of light from the glass.
Possible flare from the glass.

I think what Bob's trying to say in his inimitable Bob Solomon-ish way (and he will correct me if I'm putting words in his mouth) is that, while possible, is very impractical and you'll probably find that you don't like it.

I have to say I agree with him but go right ahead if you want to try anyway. I'd say the only way to want to pursue that kind of shutter is if you need the extreme speed they're capable of delivering.

[Bob Salomon]

Funny, all of our lenses contain glass.

Yes, and all those glasses are part of the optical formula. A glass shutter isn’t.

[Dan Fromm]

Yes, and all those glasses are part of the optical formula. A glass shutter isn’t.

Its just another filter, Bob.

[Dugan]

Is it possible to make optical glass electrochromic?
If so, a front-mounted "ePackard" shutter would be interesting, with minimal optical effect, it would be like using a filter.
Glad I'm not picking up the tab for R&D...