Lume experiment

[renfield33]

My wife and kids are at the science museum with one of her friends. I'm at home alone. What do I do? Take some experimental photos of my "S" GMT II.

I think "S" is from the early 90's but either way, there is basically no lume. When I was up at 5am today with our 7 week old daughter, I thought I could see the slightest hint of lume on the dial.

So I took out my 20d, put it on the tripod, and set it to a 30 second exposure at at ISO 400 f/4 (17-40 F4L) for 30 seconds.

Imported into Lightroom, cranked it up 4 stops and messed with the black levels. This is what came out. I realize i could have less noisy pics with a longer exposure, but I didn't want to stand there with a timer in the dark on bulb exposure. 30 sec is the longest the camera will do by itself.



Photos of the watch at baseline (taken on another day). I really need to take some decent photos of this watch, but haven't had time to get out the lights etc.



I guess the luminescence is coming from the actual material, and has nothing to do with Tritium. The hour and second hand have a slightly different tint to the naked eye, which sometimes makes me wonder if they are replacements, as they are not quite as slightly creamish as the dial lume and GMT hand.

Enjoy.

[renfield33]

i have to say i am most disappointed by the lack of comments in this thread!

[Colnago]

I think that's a brilliant experiment.....I have a 16030 DateJust I bought new in 1986, it still glows, albeit very faintly, once my eyes are accustomed to pretty much pitch darkness.....wish they still did Tritium, when it was new it was fantastic...