direct sun light...?

[fancyrock]

I just read one of the replies from "big table syndrome"... that a well cut diamond can look appallingly bad under direct rays of sunlight. My question is, why is that??? To me, sunlight is the most natural light source there is. I''ve seen stones that looks great indoors or in dim lights, but when I put the same stones under direct sunlight, then I see gray/shadow area in the stones. I thought the sunlight should make them look brighter. Any experts explaination would be greatly appreciated....

thank you...

-just confused

 

[quaeritur]

I love how my stone looks in direct sunlight... guess it must not be very well cut!

Garry, do tell, why do you think this? Is it because it's hard to really "see" the stone without being blinded by the flashes?

I've been curious about this statement too...

 

[fancyrock]

Don't get me wrong... I have seen diamonds that sparkle like crazy under sunlight from 20 feet away, but it's when i look closer at the stone (within a arm reach distance) that I noticed the gray/shadow area in the center. Is that normal? Is that to be expected from all shapes of diamonds?

please help....

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

In direct sun the body of the diamond will look dark and your pupil will be small so any fire you see is only a small amount of dispersion.
You can only ever see 1 maybe 2 flashes at a time.
try it
and search for other diiscussions on the topic

 

[quaeritur]

Ok, I've run some searches and have found a few threads where Garry says it's been discussed, but I can't find the actual discussion. Could someone either point me to the thread, or discuss it again for the sake of those newer members on the forum?

Thanks!

 

[alexah]

Here's one of the discussions

LINK

 

[fancyrock]

Thanks alexah and Garry...

I've been puzzled with this issue for a while now... I thought when a diamond is cut well (near Ideal, esp in fancy cuts), it should look evenly bright/sparkle in every angle, every light source. As I looked at more diamonds under diff conditions, I was so confused. The SAME stone can look so different depending on the light source (sometimes with a even brightness thru out the table/crown and sometimes dark area in the center, but not fish-eye). After reading the replies... I do feel better knowing that "dark area" in diamonds exist and it's normal. It's how a diamond response to light.

If my impression of this is still off... please correct me.

THANKS...

 

[quaeritur]

Thanks for posting that link, alexah. As far as I can tell, such things not really being my forte, that thread discusses light obstruction. It seemed to me that this discussion of direct sunlight was of a different phenomenon?

Maybe there's something I'm just not getting (wouldn't be the first time!

)

 

[alexah]

I hate to link to another forum but it's been discussed a lot over there - i did a search & a bunch of threads came up HERE

 

[fancyrock]

Thank you sooooo much, alexah!!

That link you provided was AWESOME! I felt alone on this "light/dark" issue and thought my eyes were playing tricks. Now I know how many folks out there that indeed saw the "dark" area in their ideal/well cut diamonds. As I read, I was knotting my head all the way thru. I feel better now.

 

[quaeritur]

Thanks alexah! That link was definitely helpful. I guess I need to study my stone in the sunlight more... I may be blind by the weekend though!

 

[wonka27]

I noticed that ugly grey/dark property out in strong sunlight too. It must be a tradeoff, because when it moves, there are some bright color flashes coming off of it. I'll take it

 

[quaeritur]

OK, with afterimages of my stone burned into my retinas, I think I understand what folks are talking about. However, I only see it in my stone with strong artificial direct lighting, not in sunlight. And in the artificial lighting, while the stone looks dark, the colored flashes are amazing, so I don't really dwell on the darkness of the stone in those conditions

.

What I've found in sunlight is that the stone looks pretty bright (not white white like in diffuse lighting) and also has huge and blinding flashes of color. I now think that the reason my stone doesn't look like the photos that were posted in that other thread alexah alluded to is because of the fluorescence. It actually has that trademark shade of blue in sunlight, and also looks as if it's lit from within, so I'm not getting the dark/grey look at all... That's the best explanation I could come up with, anyway...

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Quite a likely scenario Q.
All the more reason to like Fluoro

Also the diamond will appear whiter if there are clouds in the sky than if it is a perfecly blue sky mid summers midday (like we have here in Australia every day

 

[quaeritur]

No clouds here today, Garry! Our Colorado sunshine resembles yours down under most days of the year... at least from what I remember of our honeymoon seven years ago

. Oh, and at 5000ft altitude, we don't seem to have those pesky marsh (sp?) flies!!!