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UltravioletPhotography

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DonPilou

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Good evening,

I finally received the second part of my filter system based on a U340 2mm filter and a S8612 2mm filter, both in 82mm diameter. This way, I was able to shoot in ultraviolet with my Tokina 21mm F/3.8 and perform architectural UV pictures.

I share 4 pictures taken the last week, during a very cloudy day. The UV rate was really low, implying long exposure shots. Each picture was shot with the same EXIFs : 21mm, F/8, 200iso, 30s.

The UV effect is the most visible on the windows of the buildings that become darker. For the rest, the global tint is warm and "heavy".

 

post-112-0-62496600-1513014804.jpg

 

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post-112-0-02407900-1513014807.jpg

 

post-112-0-25521100-1513014809.jpg

 

The choice of ultraviolet here is only pictorial, I am waiting for spring now to try real landscape photography using wide angle with this technique.

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The Tokina has good sharpness for its focal length. With the Tamron, I would struggle to get that even at f/16. I wonder what its bandpass is like.
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oh man, an 82mm filter stack!! That is a BIG filter set.

 

Clearly it is working out wonderfully well. Nicely done! :D

And there are some very interesting buildings in Paris.

 

 

********

 

I was thinking......(look out, world!!)

Pierre-Louis, as an experienced photographer, would you consider it an acceptable edit to raise the midtone curve in a UV photograph (such as yours above)? Would this be considered too much of an alteration to the basic "look" of a UV photograph (assuming we can agree that such a look actually exists)?

 

Everyone kindly note that I am not trying to place Don Pilou on the hot seat because there is really no right or wrong answer to such a question. I'm just interested in opinions.

 

I got to thinking about this because I was wishing to be able to see just a bit more detail in the darker areas of your UV photos -- and in my UV photos and everyone else's UV photos. The large amount of dark area in many UV photos is something we all face in UV photography because:

  • We don't have cameras which can manage the dynamic range inherent in wide-angle outdoor architectural or landscape scenes.
  • We are shooting in a narrow band. Even with dedicated UV lenses we are only "seeing" a portion of that 100nm-wide UV range between 300-400nm.
  • And finally we have no way to know how these scenes "really look" in UV.

So as long as we are editing false colour photos made with human-invisible light, why not raise the midtones a bit?? What do you think?

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Andrea, I agree with your points above and will go one further: do we really know how things look in visible light either? I'm pretty sure what my grandma is seeing with her much-older eyes is not what I'm seeing, and that what I see now is not what I saw when I was a kid. On top of that I have some degree of colorblindness, and it's suspected that some women are tetrachrominants and can see MORE colors than is considered standard. So whose eyesight is the "right one" here anyway??

 

(And let me also throw out that my mom's night vision is not as good as mine is, so there are clearly differences in dynamic range for human sight among people as well. It does not end with the camera...)

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do we really know how things look in visible light either? :D :D :D

 

That is an interesting question. I have thought about color perception for years!

 

For a moment omit from what I'm about to say those who are color blind or who might be tetrachromats.

 

Anyway, I have one foot firmly planted on either side of the debate over whether color is subjective. Although I might be leaning rather more towards the foot on the side which says color is primarily objective. Here's why. Because of the how the physiology of the human eye works, we are all able to agree on what the color "red" is (or "blue" or any other hue...). Red wavelengths trigger a photo-chemical reaction in our eye pigments (we all have the same eye pigments) and that sends a signal to the brain and all of us are interpreting that neuronal signal (we all have the same neurons and brain chemicals) in approximately the same way. In other words, color perception is all just physics. (Well, quantum bio-physics, but I'm sure you get the drift.)

 

Before anyone launches on me, please kindly note do that I am aware of color constancy and alterations in perception due to low light, light temperature and optical color illusions and so forth. And I am aware that what I wrote is a gross oversimplification of the whole matter. No need to point out the error of my ways. (I keep my own list!) I'm just trying to participate in a forum conversation like everyone else. :lol:

 

The aging eye thing (due to yellowing of the eye lens) happens so gradually that we are able to maintain our color signal interpretations correctly due to color constancy. But color constancy is a bio-physics phenomenon, not a subjective phenomenon.

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The Tokina has good sharpness for its focal length. With the Tamron, I would struggle to get that even at f/16. I wonder what its bandpass is like.

Thanks, indeed the Tokina is really good even in the corners. I use the 17mm F/3.5 for infrared photography, as it suffers from low color fringes.

 

oh man, an 82mm filter stack!! That is a BIG filter set. Clearly it is working out wonderfully well. Nicely done! :D And there are some very interesting buildings in Paris. ******** I was thinking......(look out, world!!) Pierre-Louis, as an experienced photographer, would you consider it an acceptable edit to raise the midtone curve in a UV photograph (such as yours above)? Would this be considered too much of an alteration to the basic "look" of a UV photograph (assuming we can agree that such a look actually exists)? Everyone kindly note that I am not trying to place Don Pilou on the hot seat because there is really no right or wrong answer to such a question. I'm just interested in opinions. I got to thinking about this because I was wishing to be able to see just a bit more detail in the darker areas of your UV photos -- and in my UV photos and everyone else's UV photos. The large amount of dark area in many UV photos is something we all face in UV photography because:
  • We don't have cameras which can manage the dynamic range inherent in wide-angle outdoor architectural or landscape scenes.
  • We are shooting in a narrow band. Even with dedicated UV lenses we are only "seeing" a portion of that 100nm-wide UV range between 300-400nm.
  • And finally we have no way to know how these scenes "really look" in UV.

So as long as we are editing false colour photos made with human-invisible light, why not raise the midtones a bit?? What do you think?

 

Indeed this is a big filter ;) . For your question, you are right: we are just working with an interpretation of UV light by our camera sensors, so it is totally possible to adjust the contrast the way we want without worrying if it fits the reality. Here I processed the pictures the same way I use to process pictures taken in visible light. Maybe it is not the best way to do, but as the weather was really bad I saw no problem obtaining dark areas in the pictures. But these are my first attempts in doing wide angle UV photography, so my processing will surely change with practice, mostly with the end of winter!

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Good to hear your thoughts on adjusting UV photos. Thank you!

 

I sometimes get myself into knots wondering whether certain adjustments I make to UV files are "correct" or acceptable. So I'm always curious about how other UV photographers approach this.

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