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UltravioletPhotography

Sphagnum Moss & some kind of Lichen


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I attached an extension cord to my newly acquired ebay Blak Ray 100 AP and wandered around the yard tonight and immediately noticed all kinds of stuff "glowing". Totally bland mushrooms in visible light glowed like crazy using the UV light as did visibly camo crab spiders. I took some quick pics but mind you these are the first with this setup and the vis was with a regular LED flashlight and I already had a couple dogfish double IPA's. smile.png

So I used a regular canon 5D with no filters at all. Do you think the Blak Ray is letting enough IR through to warrant me buying a IR cut filter? If I want to do some "visible then UV induced fluorescence" photos what do you suggest I use for the visible shots? Regular ole flash? The LED I used seemed to be ok. With moss and things that don't move I could just take the visible shot during the day, wait, and then take it again at night.

 

Also:

--why would organisms glow at night under UV anyway? There is no sun to put out UV so UV induced fluorescence could hardly occur naturally. It is perplexing. Genetic Drift? Could it be that pill bugs, which glow, can only see in UV? Doesn't seem likely. Is there UV at night?

--I shined this massive light on a Black-eyed Susan and clearly saw the UV dark signature (if my terminology is wrong sorry, but I think you all know what I am referring to). Now during the day in visible light, I can only see this by blocking all light except UV. But at night by using a UV light I can see it with my naked eye. So it is thus possible to see some UV signatures with the naked eye. Everyone else probably already knew that but I didn't so it is a cool thing to find on my own. Anyway, here are a couple pics. The mature Sphagnums were bluish while the young'ins were still light green.

 

-Damon

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Damon, these are cool images.

 

--why would organisms glow at night under UV anyway?

And excellent questions. :D

 

Is there UV at night?

I don't think so. However the fluorescence that you are inducing in the subjects is occuring during the day in the sun. We can't see it hardly at all, but maybe other organisms can.

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oh, question about the moss.

 

Chlorophyll (we just learned this elsewhere) fluoresces red under UV. So why does the moss fluoresce lime-green and dark-blue? That moss has chlorophyll doesn't it? (Andrea goes to look this up. Anyway, very interesting to see this !!!!!

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Lots of strange substances and cellular structures in a Sphagnum ...

 

A good idea anyway. Lots of Sphagnum species in my neck of the woods. If I have spare time available (not highly likely, unfortunately) I'll run my own captures in UV.

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Thanks!

Well I wandered around again like some like creature let out to stalk the grounds. Tonight I found that sap from pitch pines, an unknown spp. of mushroom, and quite a few lichens fluoresce--as well as all kinds of "little things". I think white balance may play a role sometimes here as well. One lichen was orange under UV to my eye but greenish in my camera. I could not correct this in camera despite changing WB temps all over the place. Software fixed it but it is an observation I will try to been keen of in the future.

I think I will try the inverter deal soon as I tripped on my own cord and unplugged it once. The lamp takes many minutes to cool down to start again so I would like to avoid the extension cord scenario if at all possible.

Many house plants and vegetation do look deep red with this light. Although mostly on the top surface. The bright fancy mushrooms I have looked at so far in visible light have shown poor to no UV Fluorescence, while the really plain brown jobs seem to glow really well. I wonder if there are flies that can see the glow of these plain janes--just as some flowers show the familiar UV markings. If this glowing is being used by some creatures during the day then they may be less sensitive to vis light and more to UV Fluoresce. Why does it always seem like you would need many lifetimes to figure out the most basic questions? Well maybe it's that we need more time to live ie. quit getting bogged down with all the rest of the crap that consumes our time.

 

Perhaps over time we can regard such organisms as having a UV Fluorescence signature. I know it's not quite the same as I have not seen a "pattern" on anything but it's in the same region of thinking in my head.

 

One time I was ~50 ft. away from the UV lamp which was on the ground pointing away from me and my goggles still glowed a little. That is one amazing light. Matter of fact, I went to get another off fleabay and they are much more expensive than when I got mine. I sure hope that they have not started to go up in price due to demand. I doubt it--maybe I just got a good deal. I don't like the aluminum ones as they are said to get too hot to touch.

 

-Damon

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Thanks.

Here is another.

 

Brown pic is visible light

Canon SX50 no filters

iso 80 f4.5 1/6s

Automatic white balance

 

Glowing pic is UV induced fluorescence by Blak Ray 100 AP light

Canon SX50 no filters

iso 80 f4.5 0.3s

Automatic white balance

 

Notes:

As with a previous lichen, I simply could not get my Canon 5D (with 100mm macro) nor my Nikon D70 (my UV camera) to get a proper picture of this mushroom under fluorescence. I spent a good 20 minutes changing every possible sensible setting and they always came out whitish--maddening. I changed the white balance all over the place, different exposures etc...nada. I could not capture what I was looking at. So I grabbed my non-SLR and just put it in AV mode and pop, there is a perfect picture. Not sure what to do at this point except just use the point and shoot. It does take decent shots. It's just baffling.

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