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Arthropodium minus [Small Vanilla Lily]


DaveO

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Oldfield, D. 2015. Arthropodium minus R. Br. (Asparagaceae) Small Vanilla Lily. Flowers photographed in visible and ultraviolet light. http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1547-arthropodium-minus-small-vanilla-lily/

 

Synonyms

Anthericum minus (R.Br.) Steud

Dichopogon humilis Kunth

Arthropodium paniculatum var. minus (R. Br.) C. Moore & Betche

 

Maldon, Victoria, Australia

4 October 2015

Australian Native Wildflower as Garden Specimen

 

Comment

Arthropodium minus is found in all Australian states except Western Australia. The grass-like leaves are vanilla scented and the roots have been used for bush food.

 

Visible Light: Nikon D750 Full Spectrum Modification, Nikon Rayfact PF10545 MF-UV 105 mm f/4.5 lens, Metz 15 MS-1 flash, 1/200 s @ f/16 ISO 200, Baader UV/IR Cut Filter.

post-28-0-92088600-1447547768.jpg

Image Reference: DO61591

 

Ultraviolet Light: Nikon D750 Full Spectrum Modification, Nikon Rayfact PF10545 MF-UV 105 mm f/4.5 lens, Nissin Di866 Mark II flash, 1/200s @ f/16 ISO 200, Baader UV-Pass Filter.

post-28-0-93110200-1447547788.jpg

Image Reference: DO61593

 

Ultraviolet Induced Visible Fluorescence: Nikon D750 Full Spectrum Modification, Nikon Rayfact PF10545 MF-UV 105 mm f/4.5 lens with Baader UV/IR Cut Filter, Nichia NCSU033A UV-LED with Baader UV-Pass Filter, 10.0 s @ f/16 ISO 800.

post-28-0-93714000-1447547812.jpg

Image Reference: DO61606

 

References:

Elliott, W.R. and Jones, D.L. Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants suitable for cultivation, Lothian 1982, Volume 2, p. 235.

 

Published 15 November 2015

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Hi Dave

For the botanistic types here......this presents a wonderful opportunity, that highlights the different parts of the flower. By identifying the differences in the colours in the different parts of the flowers anatomy & it clearly shows exactly where each part begins & ends.

Col

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Hi Col,

 

Yes, I agree that UVIVFL does seem to show clearly the different parts of the flower anatomy. When I have enough different examples I'll try to make up some tables to show the different colours in Visible, UV and UVIVFL and perhaps what they are die to, such as the pink/red fluorescence of chlorophyll and the bright blue which has been mentioned in some refs.

 

Dave

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Dave that would be a very interesting table.

 

How do you manage the white balance for your fluorescence fotos so that the colour is accurate?

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Don't hold your breath or you will be very blue but the more I see the more I want to find out why?

 

I use the same custom light profile that I made for daylight flash as I reasoned that it would remove all the colour bias from the Baader UV-IR filter which is over the lens for both the Visible and UVIVFL images.

 

Whether the UVIVFL colour is really "accurate" I can't say as I only see the reflected UVIVFL from the flowers through my UV blocking sunglasses (remember here in the land of HIGH UV all our good sunspecs are claimed to stop UV). Also remember I'm male pattern red/green colour deficient to an unknown degree - the funny colour dot test says you have a problem not how bad it is and the online sites which pretend to do the same are a bit vague as well.

 

I find that some of my Aussie natives don't fluoresce very much apart from the anthers (with or without pollen) and that the petals are often very dim pink which I try to bring back in PN without blowing out the blue channel on the anthers.

 

I haven't quite given up trying to do UVIVFL in the bush by throwing a black cloth over a light tent with subject, camera and UV-LED inside. I'm never really sure I've got rid of all the light leaks, even with a shot without the UV-LED switched on and the real show stopper is the breeze that springs up and ruffles my patience as well as the subject inside the tent.

 

Dave

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Thanks Dave for the info about the using the daylight flash profile. I've never been able to satisfactorily solve the white-balancing problem for UVIVF work. And so I am always curious as to how others handle it.

 

I had quite forgotten about your Deuteranopia (had to look that word up!). It certainly does not stop you from making wonderful UVIVF images which we are so happy to see here.

 

I haven't - yet - read up much on the role of fluorescence in nature's scheme. It is fascinating that it occurs in some of our flowers, so it's gotta mean something. Is it just an artifact of the underlying chemistry? Or is it meaningful to a flower's survival? Interesting questions.

 

**********

 

I haven't quite given up trying to do UVIVFL in the bush by throwing a black cloth over a light tent with subject, camera and UV-LED inside. I'm never really sure I've got rid of all the light leaks, even with a shot without the UV-LED switched on and the real show stopper is the breeze that springs up and ruffles my patience as well as the subject inside the tent.

 

Oh how I hate those pesky breezes - and those gale force winds which blow in from Norway(1). Botanical UV photography in situ requires a Zen-like patience which I am not always able to produce. I attempt to practice meditative, slow-breathing techniques to quell the rise of my purple-faced high blood pressure when my 2-second exposures are constantly ruined. Interestingly though, I do look back on a long afternoon in a field of flowers as a happy time in spite of the wind.

 

It is possible to capture good fluorescence without stopping every light leak. But then one is faced with a labeling problem -- would we call this Mixed-Light Induced Visible Fluorescence? Or, Mostly-UV-Induced Visible Fluorescence? Such images (if properly labeled) would still be interesting and useful because the point is that there is some visible fluorescence from the flower.

 

 

 

 

(1) humour alert :lol:

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One of the mega-frustrations of retirement is that I don't have access to a well equipped scientific library, even if it was back in the days of hard copy Chem Abs. I know there must be data on fluorescence and also the ID of pigments in Aussie plants but alas it's all on the wrong side of a pay wall now. I'm trying to see if UV absorption is usually linked to fluorescence, in other words the fluorescence is a by-product of protecting the plant from harmful UV.

 

 

I never do any "colour balancing" of my images by eye as I'm sure to get it wrong. I follow your procedures for the visible images in PN and do the same for the UVIVFL. Then I take the tiffs into PS CS5 (because I already had that) and apply a simple levels/luminosity adjustment to bring the white point back as I leave plenty of room in PN to do the fine tuning in PS. Then I save the files as full size max quality (12) jpegs and subsequently downsize and apply sRGB profiles for the posted images. For the UV I apply a preset for white balance on Spectralon using my very scientifically modified Nissin flash (just remove the polycarbonate - at a guess diffuser) then proceed as above. There are probably colour rendering differences between the Pentax and Nikon sensors but we can't do much there.

 

If you ever think about a replacement for your D600 I can recommend the D750 I seem to have clocked up about 2210 images since I started using it in early May :)

 

Dave

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There is an increasing amount of accessible scientific material online these days. So perhaps you will find the sought for fluorescence info online eventually.

 

It sounds to me like you have a good editing procedure worked out. Profiling of the camera colours in Photo Ninja (or elsewhere) manages any sensor differences well enough for practical applications such as we do. Ideally you (and everyone else, too) preserves their original raw files so that conversions and editing can be redone should better methods or software ever appear in the future.

 

I very much do need a D600 replacement! My D600 has seen long, hard field use. While the camera has held up well enough as Nikon bodies tend to do, the D600 model suffered from a manufacturing problem causing oil (from where?) to splatter onto the sensor with every shutter slam. You'd think that eventually there would be no more oil to splatter, but no such luck -- it has gotten worse and worse and has finally worn me out dealing with it. I don't think Nikon will honour their recall/repair of the oil splattering shutter on my D600 because of the conversion to broadband which voids the warranty. So I'm looking at the D750 or the D810 for the next conversion - probably a D750 because I love using U1 and U2 settings for easy access to shooting parameters.

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Once you have used the flip screen you will never go back. Another point about the D750 which has only ever been mentioned in one of the reviews I have read, is that Nikon finally got magnification in LiveView to work properly, you really do get more detail as you drill down, not just blurry views of the same number of pixels. I keep the viewfinder shutter (the same old plastic one that you lose in the bush if it's not tied on with string) in place and focus on screen with a black cloth over my head, rather than using a right angle viewfinder on the optical viewfinder which I used to think was the way to go. So you can see at the pixel level on-screen to focus (of course you have the camera on a tripod anyway).
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The good old black cloth seems to me to be more useful than most viewers and finders! I've tried to make use of a Hoodman LCD viewer but it loses focus too easily, the strap-on band broke right away and the thing doesn't fully block light anyway. When we were shooting in the desert, only the black cloth method worked really well in that strong light. My black cloth was actually a green ground cover thing, but it did block the light which is all that matters. "-)

 

Hearing about the D750 flip screen and improved LiveView magnification was cool! I'm eager to get one now.

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