Plasma Assisted Reactive Magnetron Sputtering or PARMS is the technique in Omega's coating portfolio which provides the greatest spectral complexity.

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If you want the scene darker or brighter then you could just use the EV slider and that would remain in Apple ProRaw at 48MP, but you can’t take the shutter speed slower than 1/15sec and remain in 48MP. Period!

Look at the image below and notice the overlapping of files. You don’t notice this at longer exposure times but with fewer images taken at a faster long exposure (if that makes sense) it makes it harder to blend together … because there’s less files to overlap.

We have the diffractive optics trifecta of multiple Ruling Engines, Holographic Mastering, and Lithographic exposure to create diffractive elements. Our in-house design and manufacturing processes provide standard or custom gratings for a range of applications, in both Original and Replicated formats.

Using a beam of electrons as a heat source, the PVD process is carefully controlled in temperature and rate, and augmented by specific chamber geometry. The physical thickness of each alternating layer of high and low refractive index material is precisely measured as it grows on the substrate. A single optical filter may contain upwards of several hundred layers to achieve the desired spectral response.

Types ofoptical coatings

Our largest chamber is capable of coating single 3 meter diameter substrates. We have techniques which enable coating to millimeter (mm) sizes on many other coating platforms.

PECVD produces high-quality, uniform DLC films with excellent adhesion and customizable properties, making it ideal for a wide range of industrial, biomedical, optical, and electronic applications.

Raw Long Exposure Apps for the iPhone do so by computationally blending a series of shots to create the final long exposure image as a 12MP Bayer Raw File.

Our commitment to finding the right solutions for difficult problems means that we are capable of doing what other engineers cannot. Some say we bend physics and solve the unsolvable. Can we? Maybe. What we know we can do is this: We ask questions and we dig, because sometimes the solutions people believe they need only scratch the surface.

Just to add though … the slowest shutter speed you can set is 1/1 sec so for anything longer than that it calls for one of the long exposure apps that does the computational blending thing.

Optical coatingsfor lenses

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) is a technique used to deposit thin films, including diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings, onto various substrates. PECVD leverages plasma to enhance the chemical reactions required to deposit the coating material, resulting in high-quality, uniform films at relatively low temperatures.

Using Neutral Density Filters made it possible for me to correctly expose the image with a 2 second exposure to give motion and blur to the waves as they crash against the rocks …

The resulting thin-film layers are very dense and durable. State-of-the-art programmable logic enables in-process corrections to layer thicknesses. Such control of the coating process yields exceptionally precise spectral performance, high batch-to-batch repeatability and environmental durability.

Unlike traditional PVD that typically uses refractory oxide starting materials, PARMS bombards an elemental target (usually Si or Nb) using a magnetically accelerated Argon/Oxygen plasma. The accelerated atoms transfer momentum to the target material which in turn ejects the element from the surface onto the substrates, forming a very thin (sub-monolayer) layer. In a different part of the chamber, an oxygen plasma oxidizes this layer, creating an oxide.

With the rise in popularity of mobile photography, a new industry has developed producing add-ons such as grips to make using your iPhone more like using a regular camera along with bluetooth shutter buttons, lenses, filters and more.

Types of lens coating for glasses

Accepting that if I use manual controls the file will drop to 12MP, what if I use the Neutral Density Filters to get a correct exposure with a shutter speed of ½ second or the maximum of 1 second?

Anti reflective coating

That said though, because of how Apple ProRaw works, there may well be times you wouldn’t want to use it anyway because of the processing it applies to the files i.e. Noise Reduction and Smart HDR.

Over the past year or so I’ve been capturing seascapes more and more with my iPhone thanks to apps like ReeXpose that make all of this possible by instead of the need for Neutral Density Filter, computatiopnally blending a series of images together to create the long exposure effect … and doing so incredibly quickly.

Omega Optical leverages several deposition technologies and chamber configurations to produce our specialty optical coatings. Each coating method utilizes a qualified materials set along with proprietary deposition parameters which we control to tailor transmission, reflection, absorption, scattering, density, durability, adhesion, optical, tribological, and electrical properties (whew!).

Ion assist, or Ion Assisted Deposition (IAD), is used to densify films prepared by PVD. While in the gas phase, molecules are accelerated by a beam of energetic ions (typically Argon and Oxygen) directed towards the substrate. The IAD-prepared filters are denser and demonstrate greater environmental stability than traditional PVD deposited films.

I’ve used them in the past many times with my main camera, my Sony A7RIV when venturing out taking seascape images such as this one here at Trevose Head in Cornwall.

First, let's grasp the concept of neutral density filters. These accessories are essentially pieces of glass that reduce the amount of light entering the camera lens without affecting the color or hue of the image. They are commonly used in photography to achieve effects such as blurring motion in bright conditions or using wide apertures in daylight.

Thinking of this in really basic terms … as that’s not being used to blend images together, it should in theory produce a single shot long exposure right? When I’m sat in my office with the phone in those manual settings and move it around the image is blurry so that should work for moving objects like the sea right?

Whatever the technical reason / limitations there are for this I really do hope in the near future this is overcome, otherwise Apple continually calling the camera system “Pro” could start to get a little bit "Boy who cried Wolf” if you know what I mean.

The ReeXpose app produces Raw files, but like every other long exposure app available at the moment, those are limited to 12MP Bayer Raw files, which despite not sounding much by todays standards, are very acceptable and workable. Digitalab even printed one of my iPhone long exposure 12MP Bayer Raw File images at 72” on the longest edge, and it came out looking great …

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Would it be possible to use the Neutral Density Filters with one of the Pro Camera Apps that are available so that I could use them to shoot at 48MP in Apple ProRaw AND slow the shutter down … basically capture a long exposure the traditional way? I mean why else would there be Neutral Density filters available for the iPhone?

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The app works incredibly well and allows the user to capture exposures from ½ second all the way to Bulb Mode, and using it I’ve taken what I consider my best seascape images to date …

We believe you cannot confidently make what you cannot measure, and therefore have invested in standard and custom metrology and inspection stations. Certified ISO 9001:2015. Lean manufacturing, including 6 Sigma methodologies and approaches to problem solving.

The only adjustment you can make and keep in 48MP is using the EV (Exposure Vlaue) slider which is basically the equivalent of dragging your finger on the screen to brighten or darken image as you would in the native Apple iPhone camera app, so no good for long exposure.

Optical coatingsapplications

So looking at this, with the way the current iOS works, what is the point of Neutral Density FIlters for Photography with the iPhone?

If you leave the settings alone though and then just add on the Neutral Density filters, sure enough you can slow the shutter down … but don’t get too excited, because no matter how many Neutral Density filters you stack on top of each other, the shutter speed will NOT go slower than 1/15 sec

However, despite being 12MP and me being VERY happy with the results I wish there was a way to produce 48MP long exposure files from my iPhone using these kind of apps but that’s just not possible at the moment.

Anti-reflection (AR) High-reflection (HR) Hydrophobic Oleophobic Standard Metal Reflectors • Gold, Silver, Aluminum Enhanced Metal Reflectors • Gold, Silver, Aluminum Optical Filters Dichroic Filters Neutral Density Filters Linear Variable Filters Ultraviolet Filters (UV Filters) Infrared Coatings (IR Coatings) Conductive Coatings Transparent Conductive Oxides Solderable Coatings Tribological Coatings

I’ll cover lenses in future posts and videos but for now I just wanted to concentrate on filters … in particular ND (Neutral Density) filters.

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is the process in which a solid material is heated and passes directly from a solid to a gas (sublimation) and then back again to a solid state as it condenses on a given substrate, usually while under vacuum. The traditional approach has been to use a resistive heating element to evaporate the materials. The thermally-prepared coatings were Omega’s bread and butter business for over 25 years.  To protect and preserve these filters for long-term stability, they are typically laminated with a coverslip after preparation.  Although they have fallen out of favor recently, they still offer several advantages over surface coatings.  Because the range in refractive index is much higher amongst these materials when compared to oxides, a much thinner coating stack can achieve similar results.  This reduces stress on the substrate, and can minimize wavefront distortions.  This becomes particularly important as the wavelengths of interest move into the infrared, where thicker layers are required.  These optical filters offer deep out-of-band blocking with low residual stress and stable spectral performance.

Learn more about the full suite of capabilities which are trusted by leading Global OEM’s and their Start-up challengers to deliver the right photons, to the right place, at the right time within their instrumentation.

It was in the preapration for both of these sessions that I did A LOT of testing and research and in the process learned a lot more, or rather uncovered a lot more about the iPhone.

You see first of all when using the iPhone along with one of the Pro Camera Apps available like ReeFlex, Moment, CameraPixels and so on, if you set them to shoot at 48MP in Apple ProRaw and then adjust the exposure using the Shutter Speed or ISO, the file instantly drops to 12MP.