| Public Enemy #1: Newton’s Rings |
| 10.16.07 | No Comments |
If you are photographer you are probably familiar with Newton’s rings. I never thought I would hate rainbows but I do when they appear in my work. Newton’s rings are these evil thumb-print like rings that magically ruin an image. I thought that they would disappear once I turned digital, but oh no, they are still there! #%^*
I even bought the anti-newton glass, but that only works half the time. Grrrrr
Newton’s rings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The phenomenon of Newton’s rings, named after Isaac Newton, is an interference pattern caused by the reflection of light between two surfaces – a spherical surface and an adjacent flat surface. When viewed with a monochromatic light it appears as a series of concentric, alternating light and dark rings centered at the point of contact between the two surfaces. When viewed with white light, it forms a concentric ring pattern of rainbow colors because the different wavelengths of light interfere at different thicknesses of the air layer between the surfaces. The light rings are caused by constructive interference between the light rays reflected from both surfaces, while the dark rings are caused by destructive interference. Also, the outer rings are spaced more closely than the inner ones. Moving outwards from one dark ring to the next, for example, increases the path difference by the same amount λ, corresponding to the same increase of thickness of the air layer λ/2. Since the slope of the lens surface increases outwards, separation of the rings gets smaller for the outer rings.
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