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The camera can't capture it fully of course, but here's the gist: https://imgur.com/a/zPGrkNp https://imgur.com/a/zPGrkNp

Navarr 5y ago
I've got just enough imagination to convert the black to void so it's a very helpful picture, thanks!
- meetups323 5y ago
  Ah yes... phantasia :)
bscphil 5y ago
What a strange image! I fully expected the black painted portions to just be ... completely black, since after all the whole point is that it reflects nearly zero light. But that's seemingly not the case at all. You can download the image and put a black stripe over the top of it to compare, and the difference is quite striking. My color picker tells me that the black in the center of the mirror has a lightness of about 17 out of 100 (that's L in the LCH cylindrical color space), which is really just a medium gray all things considered. I wonder if this is due to imperfections in the paint and surface, or if the camera used just has an extremely high black level for some reason.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  I imagine its a limitation of the sensor capturing the image. When you use a tiny sensor on a phone its doing lots of post-processing, including bumping saturation and brightness.
- simondotau 5y ago
  The apparent haze in the black portion of these photographs appears to be a product of inexpensive camera optics, likely a smartphone with a bit of finger grease on the lens. If you know what you're looking for, this haze is noticeable across the entire image but especially the left third. This is a common artefact of cheap lenses (or, for that matter, a lens of any quality that is smudged or dirty) but it goes unnoticed by most people in most circumstances.
  - bscphil 5y ago
    Good explanation - that does seem pretty likely. I hadn't really considered the possibility that it was a phone camera.
    - meetups323 5y ago
      Yep, "Shot on iPhone 12 Mini" :) Tried again after giving the lens the a nice rub of my shirt, the luminance seems to be approx 1/10th. https://imgur.com/a/5tbeJZT https://imgur.com/a/5tbeJZT
      - moondev 5y ago
        Thanks for sharing, this must be a really fun conversation piece

Navarr 5y ago

I've got just enough imagination to convert the black to void so it's a very helpful picture, thanks!

meetups323 5y ago
Ah yes... phantasia :)

bscphil 5y ago

What a strange image! I fully expected the black painted portions to just be ... completely black, since after all the whole point is that it reflects nearly zero light. But that's seemingly not the case at all. You can download the image and put a black stripe over the top of it to compare, and the difference is quite striking. My color picker tells me that the black in the center of the mirror has a lightness of about 17 out of 100 (that's L in the LCH cylindrical color space), which is really just a medium gray all things considered. I wonder if this is due to imperfections in the paint and surface, or if the camera used just has an extremely high black level for some reason.

Qub3d 5y ago
I imagine its a limitation of the sensor capturing the image. When you use a tiny sensor on a phone its doing lots of post-processing, including bumping saturation and brightness.
simondotau 5y ago
The apparent haze in the black portion of these photographs appears to be a product of inexpensive camera optics, likely a smartphone with a bit of finger grease on the lens. If you know what you're looking for, this haze is noticeable across the entire image but especially the left third. This is a common artefact of cheap lenses (or, for that matter, a lens of any quality that is smudged or dirty) but it goes unnoticed by most people in most circumstances.
- bscphil 5y ago
  Good explanation - that does seem pretty likely. I hadn't really considered the possibility that it was a phone camera.
  - meetups323 5y ago
    Yep, "Shot on iPhone 12 Mini" :) Tried again after giving the lens the a nice rub of my shirt, the luminance seems to be approx 1/10th. https://imgur.com/a/5tbeJZT https://imgur.com/a/5tbeJZT
    - moondev 5y ago
      Thanks for sharing, this must be a really fun conversation piece