Hello from Australia!

[PartlyKiwi]

Hello! i'm Lewis, i come from New South wales, Australia.

 

 

i'm very happy to be here, i've browsed this forum as a guest for a rather long time now and have finally decided to become a member and contribute!

 

 

i have colour vision that extends well into the UV-A range, although i need to look through a UV filter to see it clearly, as hard sunlight in the "Normal visual spectrum" light overwhelms the UV patterns in flowers, like how IR contaminates any patterns unfiltered UV image~ UV looks "Silvery violet blue" as seen in these two images below, i've taken matching the real life view of it the closest i could. (Top is UV, as seen to the eye through the Hoya U340 - Bottom is RGB-UV composite showing patterns as seen by my eye unfiltered)

 

Gear used: Unmodified Nikon D5200 w/ Super takumar F2.0 w/ Hoya U340 at 4MM thickness in pure UV light from a 365NM sunlite LED bulb

 

 

 

i hope to eventually move on to a modified sony A7 for UV! I want that decreased flange for that sweet infinity focus and EVF! :) For now i'm stuck taking UV with an unmodded DSLR, which works out just fine as you can see! Gonna try UV astrophotography in the future which is gonna be the biggest challenge of my life.

[Andy Perrin]

Hi! Welcome! Nice flower. I like the composite particularly.

 

One suggestion: I think your filter is too thick -- it's not letting as much light through as you could be getting if you cut that back to 2mm or so, and then you would have less noise to deal with.

[PartlyKiwi]

Thanks! its actually quite fine and lets in around 80% of UV light visually and to my full spectrum webcam.

 

the UV/IR cut inside the camera is rather strong so i can't really improve on this unless i modify the camera OR stack images like in astrophotography, i'll probably stack from now on! Thanks for the suggestion though

 

-Quick quick edit, instead i'll actually find my bulb mode remote to let me do multi minute exposures to make noise non existent :)

[Andrea B.]

Hello Lewis and welcome to UVP. I hope you enjoy the site.

 

I apologize for the delay in getting round to greeting you! It has been a busy time here for me this fall.

 

It is not at all uncommon to be able to detect some light between 380-400 nm. Typically as we age we lose some of the capability to detect near-violet, violet and low blues due to the aging of the human lens which becomes yellowish with age thus blocking those tones. So you must have "young eyes". :D Good!

 

UV photography with a modified digicam is easier than with an unmodified one. And you will obtain much sharper photographs too. "-)

I modded a Sony A7R which is quite nice. You should be able to find a good used Sony body on the secondary market. But I must say that EVF is a mixed blessing for UV. At this point I almost always use Live View instead. Anyway, I hope you can move soon to a modded digicam and more fully enjoy your explorations.

 

And isn't astrophotography amazing!! I've never tried it myself, but would so much love to do so. The results that amateur astrophotographers are getting are stunning.

[PartlyKiwi]

i enjoy it alot around here, so much to learn and read about. (ill keep the sony info in mind)

 

its the best learning resource i've ever came across :) and i actually foundout i'm detecting lower than 380NM, more towards 340, as i actually start seeing the "False UV" colours people lacking a lens get strangely enough, but then again due to my UV blocking glasses my eyes have been rather shielded from UV most of my life so i see violets as brightly as other colours.

 

the UV side of my vision extends further than orange and red on the opposite end in a prism, the last "Colour" in it is a false UV blue that is white at the same time due to all colour receptors firing at once, all research i've done contributes to this being deeper UV-A and i've foundout "young eyes" can actually see that far down, in my case without much trouble as my bug zapper annoys me quite abit shining brightly in UV out the corner of my eye even visible in broad daylight.

 

As for the astrophotography side of things, try it some time :) its one of the most rewarding things i've ever done, and i'm sure it would be just as fun for you if you dont mind standing outside at night in the cold for a long time!