CLPEX Chat Board

Good afternoon everyone,

I am asking this question on behalf of one of the Crime Scene Technicians at my agency. Does anyone know if there is a company out there that sells a portable axial lighting photographic kit? Our CSTs share vans, and are looking to find kits containing the glass, stand, light, etc., in order to use the technique out at a scene. Although I know that the pieces could be individually purchased and a kit made up, I was hoping one of the vendors may sell something...

Thanks!

Heather

Edmund Scientific sells a couple of version, but it isn't that portable, and is pretty expensive. I think the less expensive one is $400 or $500 and requires a stand and fiber optic light source which runs another several hundred dollars.

An inexpensive solution is to use black foam core and a 3 inch microscope slide. The foam core can be scored so that it can stand up with the two half-sides at a 90 degree angle. The microscope slide can be taped onto the inside of this at a 90 degree angle. The light source can be a flashlight or an electronic flash. It's a pretty simple solution and the cost is virtually nothing.

I generally have an assignment which includes building one of these in my photo workshops, and usually everyone has success.

I hope this helps.

George

I did a little searching around and found on EPIC's site that there was a class by George S. Pearl on axial lighting that included creating your own kit. Here's the description of the class:

AXIAL LIGHTING: How to Light the Impossible
George S. Pearl, BCEP
Learn the problems with lighting certain subjects and how the use of Axial Lighting can solve those problems. Everyone will assemble and use an Axial Lighting Kit to demo its power, then take it home!

Elsewhere I found an email address for George S. Pearl on the epic site. I don't know if it's current, but it's listed as alps007@mindspring.com

You may be able to contact him directly and see what sort of blueprint he has for his creations, or come up with something yourself using George's foam-core idea. I do like the idea of using black, as I've seen some reflections while doing this photography.

If you've got some creative carpenters in the office, you could make something with black-painted wood that also has some sort of means by which you can change the height and angle of the glass.

IN the lab I usually just end up suspending mine with a couple of clamps on movable arms. A month or so ago I was at a tow lot taking a photograph of a latent on a handgun magazine found inside a car. This was my one shot to get it, as it was going to be sent off for DNA once we finished. The mechanic at the tow lot removed a clear piece of safety glass from his sandblaster (that was protected on the inside with Plexiglas). I had set up a table using a couple of sawhorses and a sheet of plywood. The glass was so big that I could just lean it on the table on one side using big clamps to keep it from slipping, while leaning the other side up on some blocks of wood. It ended up working perfectly I moved the wood pieces forward and back to alter the angle where I needed it. In this case, having the much larger sheet of glass actually helped, since I didn't have the clamps that I have in the office to suspend it over the evidence.

For those wanting to put together a more or less permanent setup, here's an article oriented to coin photography (same problem) that includes views of a simple and effective rig and demonstration of some variables, like different lamps, that provides some inspiration on what can be tried. With some imagination, the slotted box concept can allow the thing to be configured for other lighting schemes. For instance, leaving the bottom open and mounting the glass holder on a strip that can be moved from the top to the bottom of the open box to provide axial lighting and control ambient light for field work on large surfaces that can't be removed to the lab. And it occurs to me that they could have let the glass mount without the wood block by also cutting 45-degree interior slots across the horizontal slots.

http://www.coinworld.com/news/011705/BW_0117.asp

The link that Gerald gave keeps coming up with a "can't find server" error for me. So, I looked up the site on archive.org and found the page here:

http://web.archive.org/web/200711221309 ... W_0117.asp

Just thought I'd post that in case anyone else was having a similar problem.

George

That's nice that it's in web archive. Although using CutePDF didn't do it completely clean, you can download a PDF version of the archived web page at
http://www.mediafire.com/?4p7ytydyeig

There's also the site I linked for Heather a while back that has similar discussion and uses coins as the subject:
http://www.sigma-2.com/camerajim/cjgcoins.htm

Kjell Carlsson has sold an axial lighting kit for years. He routinely demonstrates this at the IAI conference. Here is the link to his site:

http://www.carlssoninnovation.se/

Thank you for all of your help. I have shared the information, as well as links from previous postings, with the Crime Scene Tech interested in finding a kit. Hopefully, he will be able to finagle something!