Tested: Black 4.0, the "blackest black" is a lot blacker. 0f1012 vs. 272928 | Hacker News Reader

Tested: Black 4.0, the "blackest black" is a lot blacker. 0f1012 vs. 272928

i.imgur.com

61 pointskylebenzle73 comments

Nitpick: "0f1012 vs 272928" doesn't actually mean anything. Any two shades of black or any color could result in these numbers depending on how the camera exposure is set and how the raw->jpeg conversion is done.

I was going to ask if you could plausibly get R, G, and B components that were all numerically greater from a sample object that physically reflects less light of each color, using a real camera sensor and real firmware. It seemed to me that the comparison would at least be directionally correct, at least if the effect is in the same direction for every light frequency, even if it's meaningless in terms of any absolute scale.

Then I remembered that a friend told me just today that cameras have gotten so smart about color correction that they may automatically correct an unusual scene (like a sky illuminated weirdly by wildfire smoke) to something more familiar and expected.

So, maybe if a current smart camera thought that one of the objects was a specific kind of thing that "shouldn't" be a particular color, it could just totally replace the color with one it thought was more plausible!

The absolute values are meaningless but the relative retain some information.

Even if they are not really well defined, cf from op :

> Compared it my blackest matte black paint (left), black paper, black 4.0 (middle) and sharpie (right)

Ever since Vanta Black I've been super curious about this stuff. I bought the new Black 4.0 and was blown away. Compared it my blackest matte black paint (left), black paper, black 4.0 (middle) and sharpie (right). The black paint looks grey in comparison! If you need something very black this is the real deal.

However, it is NOT at ALL like they show in pictures where things just turn into a black hole in space. To get those photos they need very specific lighting. In normal light it doesn't look like anying special. Only in the right low to medium light does it give the effect.

https://culturehustle.com/products/black-4-0

A nanotubes coating (like VB) might have better range as it operates differently: from my understanding the coating “traps” light as in a maze, it does not “just” try to limit reflection.

Vanta Black isn’t a paint, it’s an achievement of materials science. It very much does look like a black hole in space in the real world. These “blackest black” paints are just clout chasing by some guy attempting to profit from the situation where a materials science company doesn’t want to work with thousands of artists, because their real customers are like defence and telecom companies, and they are nothing like the real Vanta Black.

Isn't Black 4.0 supposed to be about as black (absorbs 99.96% of visible light) as Vantablack, even though it's just "a paint"? (I have no idea what it's made of)

Black 3.0 can absorb up to 99.0% of observable light.

Musou - 99.4%

Vantablack’s S-Vis spray - 99.8%

Black 4.0 - 99.95%.

Vantablack - 99.965%

So in other words, Black 4.0 'just a paint' is imperceptible from Vantablack using human vision, and the Anish Kapoor thing was just a publicity stunt?

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_contro...

It's a reaction to Anish Kapoor's exclusive licensing of Vantablack, regarded as abusive in the art world.

Did you reply to my comment without reading all the way to the end of the sentence?

No. These numbers are measured perpendicular.

Vanta Black has low total hemispherical reflectance below 1% from all angles, others don't.

Looking at it the other way, Black 4.0 reflects 0.05% of the light, and Vantablack 0.035%. So Black 4.0 reflects about 40% more light. The difference is not that small.

On the other hand, Vantablack is highly toxic (similar to asbestos), while Black 4.0 should be quite a lot safer.

Right but 40% of something very small is also very small. If you are experiencing the two blacks in a normal ambient environment around lighting and other non highly light absorbent surfaces, they will look extremely similar.

Isn't light (luminosity) perception logarithmic?

No, the logarithmic effect bottoms out towards the low part of the scale. If you're somewhere very dark, your eye adjusts so that you get back to the middle of the range. But if you're somewhere light and just looking at black paint, it doesn't.

Having seen his exhibit in Venice. I will say, in the right contexts it really does look like a black hole. This doesn’t require limited lighting, just regular room lighting. 3d objects painted with it will disappear into themselves as if it was 2d.

the question is whether or not the same would happen with 'conventional' black paints.

There is a science/maker that showed off the true blackest black by shining a bright light on each of them. One was the clear winner - then he revealed he faked it. It was really just a hole into a box. Quite the illusion. I can't find it right now to link it.

James, from The Action Lab https://youtu.be/JoLEIiza9Bc

That was it! Thanks.

How does black 4.0 compare to Musou black?

Musou black was far more black than black 3.0 about a year ago. It wasn’t even close.

Black 3.0 can absorb up to 99.0% of observable light.

Musou - 99.4%

Vantablack’s S-Vis spray - 99.8%

Black 4.0 - 99.95%.

Vantablack - 99.965%

Have you tried musou black?

I have tried many of these and smoothness/blackness vary a great deal.

Although lately I have been making YinMn blue mostly…

It's easy to make black material that is very black measured perpendicular. Low total hemispherical reflectance is what makes Vanta Black different. You don't see it in other paints like Black 4.0.

Possible experiment: If you could spray very thin layer of Black 4.0 into a black velvet or one of those nanofiber cloths (so thin that it's not covering the texture) you might improve total hemispherical reflectance.

I will do this tomorrow! I'll water it down and use my spray gun. :)

Genius! The poor man's vanta black!

Gross cookie enforcement that is likely a violation of GDPR.

>*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it's way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Huh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_contro...

"It all started when Kapoor landed the exclusive rights to use the pigment Vantablack, billed as the world’s darkest pigment and said to absorb 99.96 percent of light."

* https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artist-bans-anish-kapoor-g...

Hahaha IIUC Anish Kapoor, a British spectacle-based celebrity pop artist, did some silly bullshit where he arranged an exclusive contract for purchase of one of one of these blackest-ever paints (might have been Vanta?) so that the only way you could experience it was by visiting his exhibitions.

I guess the person making this new paint thought this was, well, bullshit, so this is a response to that :)

Silly question; understanding these are meant to be artistic paints, how durable are they?

Would it be even remotely feasible, for example, to paint the ThinkPad shell with it? I cannot be the only one who salivates at the concept :-)

Always reminds me of that ship at the The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Would be interesting to see car painted with this sort of paint. Or sufficiently large object. Not that it wouldn't get too hot to be usable...

> Not that it wouldn't get too hot to be usable...

It wouldn't actually, unless its infra-red emissivity was much lower than its visible light behavior. (which is why bright metallic surface become so hot in the sun: they absorb little visible light radiation but emit even less infra-red)

to be honest the car with this black is unreal

https://www.tiktok.com/@dipyourcar.com/video/729847300687400...

BMW produced a single of unit of Vantablack X6: https://www.bmw.com/en/design/the-bmw-X6-vantablack-car.html (absorbs 99,965% of visible light).

I wish this was sold :/

It's super cool, but maybe not a great idea for safety? Like from some angles you might literally not be able to see it at night, even under streetlights or when illuminated by another car's headlights.

And also from some angles it might totally mess up depth perception, kind of like dazzle camouflage, so other drivers might not be able to avoid it as well as they could avoid a car painted in a color that gave better depth cues.

Maybe in a hypothetical future where you don't need human beings to be able to see and predict cars' position with their eyes? :-)

I'm guessing the paint is very fragile, and it wouldn't survive any wear and tear.

> This show car is destined to remain a one-off because of the enormous difficulty involved in making Vantablack paint suitably durable for everyday automotive use. The car paint needed for the world’s blackest black would also be extremely expensive, not to mention questionable in terms of road safety due to its level on the absorption spectrum.

It looks cool, but if you wanted to design a car that causes accidents, this would be pretty effective way of doing so.

It would also probably melt the interior in summer.

I would guess a fully mirrored car is much worse.

An oven in summer and stealth at night?

I've wondered about this for repainting my bike frame.

I wonder, what it would look like after the first time it got dirty and how hard it would be to clean?

Would a clear coat over the top negate the effect enough that it wouldn't be worth it?

Not only would it cost $1,000+ it wouldn't work at all and maybe last like 24 hours IF you were extremely careful and didn't touch the bike

A clear coat on top of a superblack paint would probably make it look like a black mirror, or a computer screen that is turned off. You definitely won't get the "black hole" effect.

That's, by the way, how Ventablack and Black 4.0 are different. Black 4.0 is really black when looked straight on, but looked at an angle, it will start reflecting light (Fresnel effect), it is apparent on the submitted picture as you can clearly see the paintbrush marks. Ventablack is supposed to be much blacker at grazing angles. That's without a clear coat of course.

It will burn you in the sun

It's pretty cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll27OkWuE1g&t=464s

I'm curious: What are the use cases for these super light absorbent blacks?

You can paint a hole in the side of mountains and fool roadrunners into running in(to) them, then perhaps feast on the fruits of your labor. Or paint holes in the ground to fool your nemesis'. Though if Looney Tunes taught me anything, it's that it only works when you don't want it to work.

~"Sensitive optics"

A list of examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack#Applications

Painting satellites so they do not annoy astronomers. Bright satellites show up as lines in long exposures. A wide field sky survey image may be full of them.

I think there is a reason why the satellites are reflective. One thing that comes to mind is to not overheat.

Hard to dissipate heat when conduction and convection are basically null.

Heat radiates as IR and other such, even without air.

Fun fact, black both absorbs and radiates heat faster.

Of course, have you touched a black surface? If it wouldn't radiate it wouldn't be hot ;)

Your sense of heat when touching things is mainly due to conduction, not radiation, isn't it?

Hmm the radiator that is keeping my legs warm would disagree with you, but I'm not a physicist so I will simple shut myself up :)

Well it's a pretty big difference in terms of intensity, sitting next to a radiator for a few hours is comfortable, but touching one would give me a burn in a matter of seconds (screw you whoever decided that my apartment must be warmed to 25 degrees)

Only if it's also "black" in the IR spectrum.

In fact, an object that is completely reflective in the IR spectrum, but black in the visible spectrum would get really hot really easily.

The reverse is also true! An object that is black in the IR, but reflects the visible becomes cooler than ambient temperatures!

It's why Starlink satellites already switched away again from black painted satellites (that light up like christmas trees on IR anyway), to having sunshades that reflect the light away at angles pointing away from Earth, to keep the light away from both astronomic observation and the sats.

I think you want them to show, just not too bright.

Otherwise you get stars mysteriously disappearing.

And thus, the reddit "alienz are cloaked and spying on me and mine!" forums start.

Coating insides of optical instruments, especially infrared cameras.

Yup. The research group I work with builds a lot of custom camera parts (mostly 3D printed) for different projects, and we keep a bottle of Black 3.0 around to coat internal surfaces. We'll pick up some 4.0 shortly.

It's a quick and easy way to guarantee light-tightness and kill internal reflections.

It looks very interesting when you use it in constrast to other colors. Under the right conditions it creates an effect of "absence" that the human brain (at least mine) doesn't have a reference for.

Huh, kind of like how standing next to a highly sound-absorbing material can be painful or disorienting, making your brain think that your ear is damaged or blocked somehow?

yeah I'd imagine it's similar.

In my family we took a piece of christmas decoration one year and painted it in Black (v3) and it was eerie. It was just hanging there among all the other glowing/shiny stuff but it was impossible to really make out its contours or even be sure it's really there. :D

I could add things like car dashboards to the list, to avoid annoying reflections.

And also for better "Pepper's ghosts". Which is based the same effect that makes you see your car dashboard reflected in the windshield.

On my Ikea Hemnes corner desk I painted most of the hutch, plus the bezels on the 2 24" panels in it. It's like the displays are floating in the void.

I’m building a telescope and would love to use it

Home theaters using projectors is the use-case for me.

But I stick with triple black velvet which seems to be even blacker than these paints due to the 3d texture to it being able to trap and absorb more light.

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