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UltravioletPhotography

Panasonic Lumix DMC G3 Camera


colinbm

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I have now received a Panasonic Lumix DMC G3 camera.

 

I will be self converting the camera to 'full spectrum', in the next few days & I plan to use it for Ultraviolet Photography.

There is a tutorial on the LifePixel web site...

http://www.lifepixel...c-lumix-g3-ir-2

I have converted a number of cameras before & I plan to keep my fingers crossed with this conversion too.

 

I will be needing an older, wide angle, UV (365nm at least) capable lens for the G3 camera, around 20 to 35mm focal length seems ideal for flora & landscapes.

If somebody has a suitable lens they could sell me at a reasonable price I will be pleased to consider it.

I guess I am particularly looking for a Petri Kuribayashi f3.5/35mm lens &/or an Olympus Pen F/FT f4/25mm lens, in mounts compatible with adaptors available to the m4/3 system. I have M42 & T2 mounts to m3/4 at present.

I have the latest BaaderU 2" filter & various step rings.

 

I have Photoshop Elements 11, photo processing software, & I guess I will be needing to purchase & learn Photo Ninja, software.

 

Is there anything else I need to get on my way to the deep world of UV photography ?

 

Cheers

Col

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Looks good Alex, thanks.

You can PM me.

I just want the best I can afford.......no coatings & no attenuation of the UV light from a MTE 365nm flashlight & mountable onto the G3.....

I guess these are all f3.5/35mm lens ?

Col

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Colin: do report your progress (or hopefully, not problems) with the camera, and its UV performance after the conversion is completed. I have had GF-1, G2, and GH2 all converted to UV with good results, so thumbs up and fingers crossed. (currently I only use the GH-2 for UV video, mainly because the Panasonics have no support for in-camera GPS. Not everyone will need this feature of course).

 

Any of the old type 35/3.5 lenses will do well in UV.

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Thanks Bjorn

Yes I intend to do a progress report & updates.

After I saw John Dowdy's urban snow scenes, http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1261-melting-snow-suburban-uv-scape/page__fromsearch__1

I knew I had to get this G3 camera, as I hadn't seen any landscapes this good. Having all that snow reflecting in the scene, must have helped, but with my Sigmas I couldn't do better then 10% of this lighting.

Col

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Col, I'm happy for you that you got this G3 Lumix. I think you'll really love it - easy to work with and adaptable for so many UV-capable lenses.
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I guess I will be needing to purchase & learn Photo Ninja software.

 

The interesting thing about the Lumix G cameras is that you should be able to make a white-balance through the BaaderU filter and save it. It needs very good strong sunlight to do this. So a raw converter is not needed for that step.

 

However, anyone pursuing photography - in depth and in any wavelength - will eventually want to have a good raw converter to get the best out of their photos such as dealing with noise, tweaking exposures, bringing out details, improving colours, saving presets and so forth. So you certainly might want to consider Photo Ninja for that. PN also permits easy color profiling which can come in handy. Once Photo Ninja has converted the RW2 raw file to a TIF, you can then further edit the TIF in your Photoshop Elements should you need to.

 

I think I might suggest that for now you set your G3 to produce RW2 + JPG pairs. That way, you can get started shooting right away, but you will have those raw files for future use when you want to do more 'sophisticated' editing with a converter like Photo Ninja or Lightroom (or whatever).

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Indeed, if one is going to shoot jpgs for UV, having a 'perfect' UV false-colour balance is critical. This because a jpg leaves little headroom for any further editing apart from the occasional resizing and perhaps a change into a smaller colour space.

 

Fortunately, with a good Teflon disc at hand, it is easy to get a very good "false UV w/b" (sic) with these Panasonics through a Baader U filter.

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enricosavazzi

Col,

are you going to replace the G3 built-in filter with a transparent window (as explained on the Lifepixel site) or just remove it without replacing it (as I did)?

If you are replacing it, how/where did you get the replacement window?

Do you plan to remove the dust shaker at once, or to test the camera with it still in place first?

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Hi Enrico

I plan to leave the dust shaker out & not replace the hot mirror, with any glass.

I had read an article before, by a lens hire firm & placed a post here about it, that the legacy lenses prefer no extra glass in the path to the sensor.

Cheers

Col

 

PS. Glass in the Path...... http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/824-glass-in-the-path-sensor-stacks-and-adapted-lenses/page__hl__%2Bglass+%2Bin+%2Bthe+%2Bpath__fromsearch__1

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enricosavazzi

Hi Enrico

I plan to leave the dust shaker out & not replace the hot mirror, with any glass.

I had read an article before, by a lens hire firm & placed a post here about it, that the legacy lenses prefer no extra glass in the path to the sensor.

 

Hi Col,

 

that is correct, but relevant only to very fast lenses. With anything slower than f/2 (or quite possibly already f/1.4), you won't see any difference caused by spherical and achromatic aberration of a flat plate.

 

With any lens, however, regardless of speed, the optical length of the path between lens and sensor is slightly increased by removing the hot mirror, and focus at infinity is no longer possible. This requires you to use a legacy-to-Micro-4/3 adapter slightly shorter (about 1-2 mm) than standard to achieve infinity focus, which is a problem if you plan landscape photography.

 

This also means that using Micro 4/3 lenses for landscape photography after removing the hot mirror is out of the question.

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Enrico, thank you for this very important point about focus-to-infinity and its dependence on proper flange focal distance. It is sometimes easy to add a millimeter of extension but very hard to subtract one.

 

Col, perhaps ordering up a Spectrasil window or some other clear replacement might be the way to go? You could get one from LifePixel or Kolari I think? (Let me know if you ever need a "re-shipper" for those companies who won't ship to Aus. I sometimes re-ship to Bjørn.)

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Col, perhaps ordering up a Spectrasil window or some other clear replacement might be the way to go? You could get one from LifePixel or Kolari I think? (Let me know if you ever need a "re-shipper" for those companies who won't ship to Aus. I sometimes re-ship to Bjørn.)

 

Whoever orders Spectrasil in the future, it would be very good to check the glass surface quality under the microscope (even low magnification one), because my experience in this respect was not positive.

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Thanks, Alex, for the warning about Spectrasil quality.

Does this depend on the vendor? That is, some vendors may sell better quality than others?

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Thanks Andrea, Enrico & Alex for your good & useful advice.

This has thrown a spanner in the works & I haven't even started :D

 

OK, looking at the problems & a possible solution ??

 

1/ Wait for some 3mm quartz.

 

2/ Shortening a M42 - m4/3 adaptor is a do-able, I have the equipment to do that to within 2/100th mm.

A M42 - m4/3 adaptor arrived today & it measures 25mm high.

 

3/ I was looking on eBay to find another M42 - m4/3 adaptor & spotted a helicoid M42 - m4/3 adaptor 17-31mm.

 

As I will probably be only using this camera for UV with legacy lenses, I think I'll go with the M42 - m4/3 adaptor helicoid 17-31 for now, while I wait to find some quartz or what is needed about 3mm thick.

 

Yes / No, any problems with this please ?

Cheers

Col

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Of course, you can always postpone installation of a cover glass until you determine its necessity. Remember that the primary problem is focus at infinity for native m4/3 lenses. So test your m4/3 and other lenses - as you plan to do - and then you can decide later.

 

For an M42 screw-mount lens having FFD of 45.46mm, you would need 45.46 - 19.25mm = 26.21mm of extension for infinity focus. Than can be accomplished with either the 17-31mm helicoid or with a straightforward M42-to-m4/3 adapter. I just verified that both work equally well for an M42 Zeiss 50/3.5 on my Lumix GH1.

 

I'd say look for the least expensive option. :D

 

Added: Helicoids are nice because they can also act as extension tubes beyond the needed FFD extension they provide.

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Thanks for the confirmation Andrea.

I always try for the 'kiss' principle.

I wanted the least glass in the way of the UV rays to the sensor.

If there are no hiccups I am hoping to do the surgery on the G3 tomorrow.

My best lens for UV is an old 75mm off a MF folding camera, which gives me 100% transmittance at 365nm on the J221 radiometer & I have it setup on a M42 mounted tube. A M42 to m4/3 adaptor arrived today, so nothing should be stopping me from getting a good test when the conversion is completed.

So with fingers, arms & legs crossed, I am going to get some sleep & get ready for a big day tomorrow. It is mid-night here :D

Cheers

Col

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enricosavazzi

Thanks Andrea, Enrico & Alex for your good & useful advice.

This has thrown a spanner in the works & I haven't even started :D

 

OK, looking at the problems & a possible solution ??

 

1/ Wait for some 3mm quartz.

 

2/ Shortening a M42 - m4/3 adaptor is a do-able, I have the equipment to do that to within 2/100th mm.

A M42 - m4/3 adaptor arrived today & it measures 25mm high.

 

3/ I was looking on eBay to find another M42 - m4/3 adaptor & spotted a helicoid M42 - m4/3 adaptor 17-31mm.

 

As I will probably be only using this camera for UV with legacy lenses, I think I'll go with the M42 - m4/3 adaptor helicoid 17-31 for now, while I wait to find some quartz or what is needed about 3mm thick.

 

Yes / No, any problems with this please ?

Cheers

Col

This will work just fine. The only potential problem is that these helicoids have a much higher amount of extension-per-turn (of the helicoid ring) than the focusing helicoid of a 35 mm lens. So you should still use the focusing helicoid of the lens to focus with precision around infinity. When focusing, use the maximum live view zoom ratio.

 

I mounted a 4 mm thick fused silica window from Thorlabs inside a Nikon-to-Micro 4/3 adapter, for use with my G3 (also without hot mirror). One mm of thickness more or less makes no visible difference imagewise with our typical lenses. You can choose different types of anti-reflection coatings for these windows. UV-optimized does make sense.

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Thanks Enrico

Yes the G3 sure has a large chunk of glass in there, in front of the sensor.

The dust shaker appears to be a dichroic hot mirror at about 0.7mm thick & the other glass appears to be a laminate of CC type filter at about 1mm & the other 2 mm is clear.

So that is all about 3.7mm total of glass that I have removed.

I am having a problem getting the zif cables reconnected, particularly one that is in a tight spot.

I can only assemble the camera & test, then dissemble again to find which cable it not connecting properly & test again.

A bit annoying as I haven't had this much problem before with the zif cables, but as I said one is in a tight spot & is a spot of bother.

I am waiting for a fresh start tomorrow in some good light, there is too much black on black for my tired old eyes.

I did read over some of your site, again today, you have a wealth of knowledge in there Enrico.

Col

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Well that is the end of that little exercise ........

That zif cables connector is broken & unrepairable. Actually it was fragile before I started & the camera had been opened before I got to it & there was a missing screw.

That's the gamble you take buying second-hand.

Oh well, it has been an education & I am now familiar with this cameras conversion now, except for seeing the results of my labour.

So, that's it, until I can find another undamaged mother board for this G3 or save for another G3 camera......

I'll resume this post at some later time.

Col

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Sorry to hear about that. You might inquire with LifePixel.

Their website says they do not do repair work but perhaps you might get some advice.

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