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UltravioletPhotography

First Experimental UV Kit Questions


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I've been doing IR photography for a while. So I guess I'm at the moderate experimental stage with that. I use a full spectrum converted E-PM2 using mostly regular m4/3 lenses (a couple of adapted Zuiko's as well) and pretty standard IR filters. I've experimented with false color etc but have been happiest so far with conversion to black and white. My basic workflow is now shooting hand held (occasionally tripod if indoors), shoot a custom white balance, process via Lightroom with 2 or 3 different custom DNG profiles. Then a lot of time fiddling with the tonal sliders and then maybe into Nik or Topaz for final adjustments. I'm not a photoshop fan (my wife continues to try to convert me to the true faith) so its nice to be able to avoid channel swapping, etc.

 

I started out, as I think many IR photographers do, with an IR leaky unmodified EM5, an IR filter, and long exposures. I do that occasionally still.

 

My first thought was to basically duplicate my early IR experiences in UV. But obviously using my modified camera.

 

After a couple of days of reading the forums here I'm getting the idea that its not quite that simple with UV. :)

 

What I have in mind is to just grab something like a U330 filter and a S8612 and go out and experiment to see if any of my current lenses leak enough UV through to make some interesting photos. I'm attracted to the U330 because it seems to let in perhaps enough visible light to allow hand holding in the right circumstances. Am I kidding myself? Should I be looking from the start for older more UV transmissive lenses to adapt?

 

Or have I missed the boat entirely? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

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What lenses do you currently have?

 

I regularly shoot UV pictures hand-held. Good lens, bright sunshine and high ISO make it possible.

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Hand-holding might be out of reach unless you have a very steady hand and don't mind shooting at elevated ISO setting. The bandpass filters tend to be very dark and there is but little UV present. Do remember UV is a tiny fraction of the visible light present, likely at most 5% or so.

 

If a filter lets in "enough visible light to allow hand holding ...", you cannot hope to get much in way of a UV image. Does not entail the outcome will be bad, just that it won't be UV.

 

Like Alex, I can do UV in bright light and UV video even under overcast conditions. But the lens then is "good" for such applications.

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I have a wide complement of Panasonic and Olympus primes and zooms. A couple of Zuiko 50mm lenses I use with my OM2n and occasionally on our Panasonic and Olympus bodies.

 

I regularly hand hold IR now with the modified camera. And you can do some interesting things combining IR with limited visible light. I tend to stick in the IR only space just because til now I've liked the results more.

 

But it sounds like most of the lenses I have are likely to block so much UV that even a narrow slice of visible light is going to wash out the UV. (I have noticed that I tend to get more purple fringing when I use a Panasonic lens on an Olympus body. Is it possible that's because the Panasonic lenses are letting in more UV spectrum than the Olympus bodies are expecting? So maybe they are a bit more UV 'leaky'?)

 

I realize there are about a thousand variables here. And its highly dependent on what my goals are. But I don't have any specific ones right now. Mostly I'm looking to experiment with at least predominantly UV spectrum images as an additional creative tool. And without taking out a second mortgage to do it.

 

I'm not the type to spend a bundle and jump straight to the 'professional' kit for anything. I like to start slow and collect new stuff/skills to address problems as I meet them.

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You mention the U-330 + S8612 stack, similar to what I used here for these. These kind of stacks don't require as much exposure time as a UV-only filter.

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These are all shot using the classic UV+Blue+Green 'bee vision' stack, usually used for flowers:

Schott UG5 1.5mm thick + Schott S8612 2mm thick (stacked).

Full spectrum converted D7000 camera.

I used my 18-55mm VR lens for these, so colors might be slightly different using a more 'UV capable lens'.

These were all shot hand held, auto-everything, but white balanced from RAW in CNX2. Simple processing:

NEF > CNX2 > Marquee white balance > Photoshop > Levels.

 

post-87-0-08314900-1457144185.jpg

Meta Data: F/4, 1/60s, Matrix, Auto (ISO 720)

 

post-87-0-16525500-1457144224.jpg

Meta Data: F/4.5, 1/30s, Matrix, Auto (ISO 1100)

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All examples in this thread: http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1503-example-pictures-taken-with-primalucelab-uv-filter/

were shot hand held under not so bright Swedish autumn sun, and using PrimaLuceLab UV filter (that gives longer exposider comparing to Baader U2, under similar conditions).

As you can see, critical sharpness is absent due to:

1) some shake still present, cause both by relatively low shutter speed and windy shooting conditions;

2) aggressive noise reduction of high ISO noise.

Nonetheless, they serve the purpose.

 

When it comes to choosing the lenses, as I tell this to everyone else, choose the focal length (angle of view) that you want to use, and from than you can get recommendations.

 

I will let Andrea to point you to our Lens Sticky, as I would not want to deprive her from this task she's been doing for so many years ;)

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oh la! Yes indeedy - the Lens Sticky is found here: http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1654-under-edit-sticky- uv-capable-lenses-under-edit/

In the Lens Sticky you will find lots of UV-capable lenses listed which are available on Ebay, Amazon or other reseller sites and which may be adapted to your Pen. I would try to look for one of the 35/3.5 types or for some kind of enlarger lens. These can still be found at reasonable prices.

 

Also run a Tag search on UV Lenses to check our posts about lenses: http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1596-index-tag-searches/page__view__findpost__p__10332

 

By having a full spec Pen camera and a good UV-pass filter or filter stack, you are already half-way to making UV photographs. Finding a UV-capable lens is not difficult. And perhaps some of your existing lenses may work well-enough for getting started in UV photography. One example I know about is the Lumix G Vario 3.5-5.6 14-45 ASPH Mega O.I.S. which was the kit lens that came with my old Lumix G1, the first mirrorless m4/3 camera. The camera is long since gone but I kept the lens and occasionally use it on my full spec Lumix GH1. This lens works well enough in the near UV on the full spec GH1.

 

Really, all you need to capture is the near UV region from about 365-400nm to get a good-enough UV photograph -- maybe we should even say 375-400nm?? And you can usually "force" enough UV through most kit lenses to attain that. Naturally lenses with fewer elements and less coatings tend to pass more UV light. And the more UV-capable a lens is, then the better other the lens's characteristics will show in UV (such as sharpness, microcontrast, etc.)

 

If it turns out that you like UV and want to pursue it further at some point, then you can search for gear that will take you past "good-enough" and into "seriously UV-capable". :)

 

The thing to do is set up a generic outdoor, cloudless, sunny day experiment. Put some grocery-store sunflowers in a vase, set them in the yard with some landscapy stuff or a fence in the background. Get all your lenses together, have step-rings for adapting your UV filter to each, put the Pen on a tripod and shoot the same scene with each lens at the same aperture and same ISO. Compare the exposure times to see which lens performs the best. And post your results for us to see! I would be very interested to know which of your Panasonic or Olympus lenses performed best.

 

As Bjørn mentioned, IR or Visible leak is the enemy of UV. Although a tiny, tiny amount of violet or violet-blue leak is present is some UV-pass filters. (After all it is not well-defined where UV really starts.) Keep in mind that the UV::VIS::IR composition of sunlight, depending on location, is around 4::42::54 and then you can see why we cannot always easily hand-hold for UV.

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Yes, if you want to do UV-only then you could pair that S8612 2mm up with some other U-glass like UG11, U-340, UG1, or U-360, using a suitable thickness of one of those efficiently matched to the S8612 2mm.

I was only showing the UG5 (U-330) stack shots because that is what you have, which can be artistic, and maybe even bee-tistic, but not UV-only.

So with UV-only you need to think about the lenses.

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I have really come to enjoy working with the UG5/U330) + S8612 stacks. There is enough UV from these stacks to show some of the interesting UV characteristics of a scene. (Did I say what I meant here? I don't know. It's getting late!! :rolleyes: )

 

Anyway, Bee-tistic work is fascinating!

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All very interesting. And encouraging. Thanks for the great information.

 

Since my basic carry around lens for IR has lately become the Panasonic 14-45 it sounds like I should already be on the right track!

 

Now all I need are filters. My guess of the U330/S8612 combination just came from the best guess of an IR only person trying to puzzle through the filter charts for the UV end of the spectrum. But UV-only sounds like more of a possibility now. So maybe I'll have to do both! Just have to have a conversation with my personal banker about the state of my budget. She's already making that face about expenditures for my jumping back into playing around with film. B) Anyone have preferences between the UG? and U-??? filters? I've mainly been using Hoya filters for IR work and been happy.

 

Being the systematic sort any way I'll definitely be testing all our lenses and I'll report back here with results and pictures. Hopefully I'll stand up a processing workflow quicker for UV than I did for IR.

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Using stack filters permits you to gradually expand your filter capability. Start with a 1.75 or 2mm thick S8612 and one UV-pass choice like a U-330 (or whatever). Then later add another choice like a U-360 since you already have the IR blocking S8612.

 

Cadmium is your man for advice on which filter stack to get (UG or U and so forth). The link to various filter websites is in the Filter Sticky along with more info about the various filters. If you get "hooked" by UV photography, there are a lot of additional good filter options: BaaderU, AndreaU, CopperU, specialized stacks and so forth.

 

IIRC, the Lumix 14-45 has had more than one version over time. I only have the one original version, so I can't say how later versions might work.

 

Enjoy your investigations!!!

Tell your SigOth that photography "keeps you out of trouble". I'm sure she would rather have you doing that over sitting in a bar somewhere. :D :D :D

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DJT, I misunderstood your original post, and thought you already had those U-330 and S8612 filters. My apologies because talking about UV+Blue+Green is a bit of a diversion from UV photography.

Anyway, I hope this isn't too wordy, but here goes:

 

For UV-Only the Baader U is usually a no-brainer. It is 48mm and can easily be adapted for use with 52mm.

If you need a larger or smaller size, or if you want something less expensive, then there are stacks.

Here are a few ideas for possible UV-Only stacks:

 

Hoya U-360 (or Schott UG1) 2mm thick + BG40 2mm (or S8612 1mm).

I like this stack because my results with it look close to the Baader U, and has the same exposure time, depending on the specific stack, and it is least expensive.

You can use more suppression than BG40 2mm if you wish, like S8612 1.5mm - 2mm, but I have had great results with the BG40 2mm. Adding more suppression will make UV exposures a little longer.

I prefer the Hoya U-360 glass rather than Schott UG1, it tends to perform with a bit more UV efficiency than UG1, this improves exposure time slightly, but either can be used for this formula.

The other perk of having U-360 (or UG1) is that you can use it alone as a 'dual band IR' filter, giving blue/lavender skies with no channel swapping.

 

Schott UG11 (or Hoya U-340) 1mm thick + S8612 1.75mm thick. You can use S8612 1.5mm thick for this, or 2mm, depending.

In this case I prefer the Schott UG11 glass because I experience better visual range blocking with it at 1mm thick than with Hoya U-340 at 1mm thick.

With thicker versions of each I don't think it makes a difference.

U-340 is much more cost effective than UG11 however.

 

You can reverse these formulas also, for example, UG11 (U-340) 2mm + S8612 1mm (or BG40 2mm).

It is best to calculate the stack to see what UV and IR suppression performance it shows.

The other factor is what wavelength the UV peak will be, some will be more toward 350nm or even lower, some will be more toward 365nm...

The usual ideal peak for more common older UV capable and affordable lenses would be about 360nm.

Although many older lenses may be found that will transmit UV down to 320/330nm or so, the lens curve drop-off will truncate a UV filter's lower range and the filter's potential peak wavelength, so in most cases the 360nm peak works out to be most efficient.

Another factor is the UV-Blue threshold, how much the UV-Only filter will transmit into the Blue range, this can be more or less depending on the stack formula, and it is something to look at in a plotted graph.

A Rule of Thumb: In general, when you make the U-glass thicker and the BG-glass thinner it will move the UV peak lower, if you make make the U-glass thinner and the BG-glass thicker it will move the UV peak higher.

Doing either needs to first maintain the desired Red/IR suppression and UV transmission peak amplitude.

If anyone ever wants a graph plotted for any Schott/Hoya stack, I like doing that with the Schott program, so just let me know and I will do one for you. I have a lot of Hoya glass data entered into the program to use.

If you want to do that your self, you can download the 'Schott filter glass calculator' program, but you will need to enter any Hoya glass data from their data sheets if you want to use any, which takes some getting use to, and always takes a lot of time.

 

There are endless other UV-Only stacks. The basic idea is that you want to combine U-glass with BG-type glass to achieve the best possible 'balancing act' between strong UV transmission and sufficient Red/IR suppression.

One thing I would avoid using is BG38 as the suppression glass in a UV-Only stack because it has the least Red/IR suppression and not the best UV transmission either. You will see it mentioned for this use many places, but avoid using it.

Also, BG39 is equated with strong Red/IR suppression, but keep in mind that S8612 has the same suppression as BG39 and also has much better UV transmission.

So the two BG type glasses that are preferred for UV-Only stacking are BG40 and S8612 in most cases, and S8612 requires only half the thickness of BG40 to do the same job maybe even slightly better.

Also, know what glass your filters are actually made of, if you don't then you can't plot a graph, and won't know why your results are the way they are.

In my opinion, renamed secret filters are not to interesting. These don't provide me with the kind of information I want when stacking.

 

S8612 (as well as BG40) can also be used for other functions, other stacks, and even for Visual only, however I prefer BG38 (or BG40) for my cameras, and some prefer the Baader UV/IR-Cut (which looks a little too red on my cameras).

S8612 2mm gives the dual purpose option of using it in a UV+Blue+Green ('Bee-tistic') stack, and 1.75mm dose pretty good also.

For UV+Blue+Green, most seem to like the Hoya U-330 (Schott UG11) 1.5mm thick + S8612 2mm thick stack best, but you can adjust either or both of those thicknesses to have more or less red added.

You can even use other BG glass if you want to induce Red/IR peaks of different amounts which can be attractive, artistic, such as U-330 1.5mm-to-2mm thick + BG40 or BG38 2mm thick.

 

Boon did an excellent comparison of various UV-Only filters and stacks here. I think this is the best comparison I have seen.

Boon is very smart, and you may want to take a look around his other examples also. He has done many UV and UV+Blue+Green photos, as well as many other noteworthy photographic endeavors.

Note the different thickness of glass he uses in his stacks. Note also how black or 'warm' the darker areas on the flowers are between filters/stacks. I think these are shot with flash.

http://myphotojourne...s-a-comparison/

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Steve, this is an excellent and knowledgeable write-up. Thank you!!!

With your permission, I will adapt it and add some other info for a stand-alone post which discusses UV-pass filtration choices. I'll PM you about this.

 

(And also thanks to friend Boon for his efforts in our UV world.)

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Cadmium, you just blew by me so fast my head is spinning. I'm pulling over into the very slow lane and waving as you go by. :o

 

I'm also copying that text and saving it for reference over the coming months. Many thanks. That was very helpful.

 

Right now I don't really have a clue what I'll be interested in. Which makes it hard to guess at the wavelengths I'll find most appealing. When I started with IR I just thought the few I had seen 'looked cool'. Over time I'm increasingly drawn to contrasty black and white conversions and toning down the brightness of the foliage. IR that isn't 'obviously' IR. I doubt I could have predicted that when I started experimenting.

 

The more I read here and look at the image galleries the more I think there are some very interesting ideas for imaging making.

 

Thanks.

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Greetings DJT,

Since you are using an Oly E-PM2 you might find this posting of interest.

Don't discount smaller filters, mounted inside helicoid adapters or on front of a lens in suitable step down ring assemblies (with thanks to member Enrico Savazzi)

With the crop factor of the µ4/3 sensor one can usually get away with smaller filters without vignetting when adapting most larger format lenses.

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Hi DJT, Yeah sorry for the 'book'! That post was much longer than I realized when I was writing it, even I don't understand it. ;-)

To simply, use a Baader U or a stack, but the U-330 stack is not UV-Only, so get a stack that is based on UG11 (or U-340), or U-360 (or UG1).

Choose BG40 or S8612 for your suppression glass.

Plot the stack so you know the stack transmission, or find a graph for the exact stack you will use (exact filter glassed in the stack, and individual thicknesses).

Find a decent UV capable lens.

UV is not friendly to hand held shots, it would require higher ISO at least, and the better the lens transmits UV the less exposure time you will need.

Sorry again for my long winded wordy post.

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Yes, I have a BUNCH of new links in my bookmarks now. Plenty to keep me busy. :blink:

 

Seriously though, thanks for all the pointers and links. Its great to find such a helpful community.

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