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UltravioletPhotography

Passiflora caerulea [Blue Passion Flower]


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Davies, A. (2018) Passiflora caerulea L. (Passifloraceae) Blue Passion Flower. Flower photographed in ultraviolet and visible light. Visible fluorescent photo also. http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2855-passiflora-caerulea-blue-passion-flower/

 

United Kingdom

Date

Cultivar

 

Comment: I have long wanted to photograph a Passion Flower (Passiflora caerulea) in UVR and UVF. One finally bloomed in the garden yesterday (in the current UK heatwave!) Not sure about the results - need to understand more about the flower structure! The UVR show a UV pattern on alternate petals - interesting!

 

 

UVR: Nikon D300 full spectrum conversion, El Nikkor 80mm lens, Baader U, 2 x Metz 45 CT flash guns with plastic UV absorbing window removed. f/11. 400 ISO.

Left: Visible reflected light. Right: Ultraviolet reflected light.

post-47-0-94262100-1530698332.jpg

 

 

UVF: Nikon D800 with 200mm Micro Nikkor. UV source: Convoy S2+, light "painted". Exposure approx. 20 seconds @ f/11.

Left: Visible reflected light. Right: Ultraviolet-induced visible emitted light.

post-47-0-45854300-1530698354.jpg

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Andy Perrin
Beautiful and interesting how the UVR brought out a difference between the outer ten petals - they seem to be two separate groups of five petals each.
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What an interesting flower in UV! That is a remarkable UV-signature. Very nice to see this.

 

When I lived in Arizona the house had a feature called an "atrium" - a little box of an area in the middle of the house open to the sky. I grew Passion Flower vines on the walls along with a bit of bamboo and some Mugo pines. It was so pretty and the Passion Flowers were so intriguing.

 

I'm not entirely sure what is fluorescing on the bloom though? Does the whole flower fluoresce? It looks like only the anthers and pollen are really fluorescent? Are the petals fluorescent or simply reflecting other light? What is brightest on the flower under a 10 second exposure?


 

Adrian, to be in this section the topic must be indexable by title and post header, so I'm going to add that. (Sending PM also.)

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  • 4 years later...

Have grown some Blue Passion Flower vines from seed. Four of the seedlings have overgrown a 1 metre high support frame and recently got lucky with three buds. Scored two on the next leading nodes! After observing the first bloom pop and last only 24hrs, I didn't waste any time for the second round of two that popped 4 days later.

One strange fact about these flowers - 3 stigma branches and 5 anthers/stamens supporting the pollen pods.

It was a bright sunny day, so I moved the entire plant into my garage for a more controlled environment. Here are the results:

 

Equipment:

  • Full spectrum converted Canon EOS R5 (Kolari)
  • EL-Nikkor 105/5.6 on helicoid focuser
  • Filters:

Kolari U uv pass

Kolari Hot Mirror V2 for direct visible light

Kolari UV/IR cut for UVIVF + Hoya XO for 395nm barrier (partial) & Tiffen Haze 2E for 365nm barrier

Generic 630nm long pass for direct IR and UVIIF at 365nm & 395nm

  • Illumination:

26W Komodo Desert Sunlight reptile UVB fluorescent globe for decent UVA illumination as follows:

image.jpeg.d9958c01ea5b16c9e4399c358a47417d.jpeg

it also works for visible and infrared, but not optimal. Works well for UV with long 10s to 1min exposures depending on subject. Gives a very good UV colour range when using UV capable lenses and Kolari-U and Baader-U filters.

LetonPower diving torch for visible and infrared - a powerful white LED torch.

365nm led UV torch (with prefitted wood's glass) for UVIVF & UVIIF

395nm led UV torch (with BG3 violet cover glass) for UVIVF & UVIIF

 

Technique:

  • UV, visible & infrared colour balanced using a white PTFE sheet with exposure dialled down to avoid any RGB channel clipping.
  • Focus stacked using Helicon Focus 8.
  • ISO100, f/8 for all shots.
  • All on steady tripod with no ambient breeze.

First Up - Visible light direct

image.jpeg.152473d7332daf4e4d0e056a840b7510.jpeg

 

Ultraviolet reflectance. Kolari UV bandpass. Strong blue with whites at the core. Not showing any yellows typical with carotenoid pigmentation. Some blue response with the vine tendrils.

image.jpeg.dcbc44841d85e7293747d1faf2ba87c8.jpeg

 

and infraredimage.jpeg.2f3bb1514bf8c953cfb33dc6e035e1f4.jpeg with 630nm longpass filter

 

Let's party with a bit of fluorescence! White balance - photographer's discretion.

UVIVF 365nm. Note the strong fluorescence of the pollen pods.

image.jpeg.ab523636c84d308a5ce6b63af33cc178.jpeg

 

UVIVF 395nm. Chlorophyll fluoresces bright in deep red (~690nm) with 395nm excitation - even more so than 365nm excitation. Hence the use of the Hoya X0 filter, which dials down the strong red a bit. Note the strong green response with the pollen.image.jpeg.3f3531c53509835126819f2f2d78ab83.jpeg

 

Now for UV induced infrared fluorescence (UVIIF - I think?)

UVIIF with 365nm illumination. Note the brightness of the core structural elements of the flower that doesn't show up with other illumination combinations.

image.jpeg.dba6ffd0037e7b1c06df327c8631b36b.jpeg

 

UVIIF with 395nm illumination.

 

image.jpeg.c97ba421fc2df363f88ca9bd8b4d106d.jpeg

 

 

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23 hours ago, cazza132 said:

Focus stacked using Helicon Focus 8.

 

really very beautiful and imaginative.
one question, how did you make the images to be stacked with Zerene ? it's great !

is it a complicated thing?

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Meticulous attention to details really pays off -- kudos.

 

Manual stacking isn't complicated unless one requires many frames. In that case, using an automated rail is preferable. A rock steady and stable support is always required.

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Helicon or Zerene are the top candidates for stacking software. I'm most familiar with the latter and it can easily stack hundreds of images at a time. Point the program to an image series, set a few parameters (or use defaults), and go for coffee or refreshments. Zerene stacks quite fast, although very deep stacks can be time-consuming as they should be divided and stacked into 'slabs' first. However, even this extra step can be handled automatically. Helicon probably offers similar options.

 

Never used Photoshop for this purpose and see no need when much better alternatives are available.

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You're right Birna, but I don't need to do macros often

Photoshop CS6 (slow but functional) that I bought many years ago is enough for me.
For work I used the Z7 with MC 105 with staking a couple of times in two years :)

 

if there was an free application on the web, I would try it, but the problem always remains that if you don't have a motorized sled to make UV with manual lenses,  ten shots are few and badly spaced.

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21 minutes ago, photoni said:

if there was a free application on the web, I would try it, but the problem always remains that if you don't have a motorized sled to make UV with manual lenses,  ten shots are few and badly spaced.

Zerene stacker have a free trial period of 30 days and is well worth to check out!

 

If you read up about how to calculate suitable step length and take a couple of photo stacks before you start up the Zerene program for the fist time, you'll have plenty of time to play around and try it out. You might be surprised how useful it is.

The license is not going to expire. I bought mine 14 years ago and have not needed to pay anything for new versions.

 

A manual sled works quite well if it is of reasonable quality.

AFAIK all extreme macro images from Colin are done with with a 100X microscope objectives and a really good manual sled with a step scale grid of a bit more than 1um.

If you have less magnification a much simpler stacker-sled will be quite enough and many times a step length of 1mm or more is all you need.

It is not that much work to step and expose 15 or even 30 steps.

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Thanks for the feedback folks.

Regarding the focus stacking, I used ten shots with Helicon Focus 8. The biggest issue I faced was artefacts popping up around the closest parts.  Helicon has a really good retouching tool - had to purchase to pro version to get full use of it though, but worth it.

 

Here are some closer versions and you might be able to see some of the artefacts that I'm talking about. These could have been fixed with a bit more time spent with the retouching tool to manually correct the depth map.

Visible light direct

image.jpeg.f7a00c782e9d8fdea8b2a404bede15f7.jpeg

 

Ultraviolet reflectance. Kolari UV bandpass

image.jpeg.51e3ac3dc9e3fecc0a04660fcfe13114.jpeg

 

Infrared with 630nm longpass filter

image.jpeg.66abcea392f6919e2ad6e52d62dddedd.jpeg

 

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