Buttercup

[Andy Perrin]

Trying a new combination of equipment here; this is with the EL-Nikkor 80mm/5.6 and 330WB70 on a huge helicoid. The idea was to see how high I could push the F-number, since the EL-Nikkor is my sharpest lens with good UV pass and the 330WB70 has a peak in the short waves (by our usual standards) so diffraction limit is less restrictive. This was F/22. I wanted to try F/45 but the damn wind wouldn't let me. As it was, I had the flower propped up with a stick. Cheating!

 

3.2" ISO200, and additional sharpening/denoising with SmartDeblur 3.2 and Neat Image. Saturation has been pushed up because it's a buttercup.

 

The suspect in its usual garb:

[JMC]

That's cool. I'm a bit surprised that the parts of the petals nearest the centre of the flower don't look darker. When I looked at a Buttercup with the Baader U it was darker in the middle;

 

http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2740-im-hooked-first-attempt-at-uv-colour-photography-of-flowers/page__fromsearch__1

 

Do you think the difference is down to it being a different species, or that you're looking with a different filter?

[Andy Perrin]

Different species? I'm not the botanist around here and no doubt they will weigh in, but your petals are shaped differently also. Buttercups are a big family.

[Andy Perrin]

Here is another shot. I'm not sure which I prefer. This was the same settings as the above but exposure was 10":

[Andrea B.]

Yes, the buttercups can vary in their UV-signatures amongst the species. Some have larger UV-absorbing areas on the petal base than others. Some have no dark blotches at all but are rather uniformly UV-absorbing. And I'm sure we will see yet another variation eventually. In Andy's flower above, the dark areas on the petals seem to be lurking underneath the anthers/filaments. You can just make them out a little bit. One dark blotch is also being very shiny on that uppermost middle petal. So at the particular shooting angle used, it doesn't look dark.

 

That is an excellent photo Andy. You've captured nice petal texture detail. And all those UV-black pollen grains. And there is a little spectral star on the leftmost petal (first version), a sign of Good Luck headed your way. :D

 

Do you know about High Pass Overlay sharpening?

[Andy Perrin]

Yes, that's the same as an Unsharp Mask. In principle the deblurring performed by the SmartDeblur program is better than that method, since it reverses the cause of the blurring instead of indiscriminately enhancing all the high frequencies. (Whether it is better in practice is a different question!)

[Andrea B.]

Was mentioning it because sometimes after other sharpening is done, I go back and selectively brush a little hi-pass overlay on pollen or on anthers. Usually only radius 1-2 when using Capture NX2. It's tedious to hit each anther with a brush, but sometimes nicely effective.

[Andy Perrin]

Hee, like makeup for flowers. I’ll play with it.