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Comment by kylebenzle | Hacker News Reader

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kylebenzle·

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%

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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.

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