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UltravioletPhotography

What floats YOUR boat?


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One of the things that's obvious and fascinating when looking at what goes on on this forum is the wide range of interests and activities. Different people have clearly got different areas of UV & IR they are interested in and that they spend their time and money on. Some people have in depth scientific knowledge and enjoy pushing the boundaries and providing technical explanations of what is going on. Others just like to take pictures.

 

So I thought, now that we are all house-bound with time on our hands, it might be interesting for UVP members to think about and share what aspects of photography in UV (and IR) really turn them on, and what they enjoy doing. Perhaps limited to the top 3, for the sake of brevity.

 

So for a starter, here are my three:

 

1) creating images that show you things you cannot see in visible light photography.

 

2) trying different techniques and combinations of them (e.g. UV + stereo + focus stacking + macro) to get unusual images - with the occasional stunning result.

 

3) finding ways of doing things with the limited resources, skills, and knowledge available to me.

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1) Documenting UV (and other) floral signatures and maintaining the botanical section of UVP.

 

2) Hosting UVP and meeting all kinds of wonderful photographers!! Providing test results from a range of filters and lenses is also enjoyable. (And I hope might be useful to others.)

 

3) Working in IR as an artistic outlet.

 

There is lots more. But, as Bernard has said, for the sake of brevity, that's it. :cool: :bee:

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1. I like to push the boundaries into deep imaging. Uv seems more affordable now than IR. Although I think I quickly hit the 1100nm limit of silicon. The deep end at 185nm still eludes me. I keep getting really close. My lights are now causing issues.

 

2. Testing out different combinations of lights, lenses and filters to push a look. My vision is still a little cloudy, but fun to try and hit that look I am aiming for.

 

3. Building things. I seem to have now constructed 14 single element fused silica lenses. Previous was building a manual filter wheel, then light arrays before that. The lenses have proven very useful and can be used in odd different ways than I originally expected.

 

Recently stacked various on top of my Canon 40mm f2.8 STM lens to gain close focusing and incamera focus stacking to avoid again buying an automatic rail. I think I will keep it in camera, as I don't own a powerful enough computer to even handle the focus stacking. A computer purchase may have to wait a couple more years now.

I needed to cut the resolution before even doing alignment of images. Lucky online uploads are small.

 

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1. I'm born curious

 

2. There are no rules apparently set in stone when dealing with "invisibility" and depictions thereof

 

3. Lots of money can be earned if you deliver stuff nobody else does

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1) "Seeing" light that can not be seen. I remember that when I was a kid my dad installed a small TV in his car, so that my sister and I could watch cartoons in the back seats. The TV remote had an IR LED. I knew that it was "past" (actually before, as the prefix "infra" indicates) red light. That LED emitted light that I couldn't see. And I thought about it, I pointed that remote at my eyes knowing that I was illuminating my face with invisible light, without seeing anything. Now I have the hardware to do that.

 

2) "proving" that all EM waves are basically the same. It may seem obvious, it is like saying that ultrasounds are still sounds. But to be able to see that is a completely different thing. For example, in the future I want to build a microwave camera or something similar (I still have interest for THz waves), and I want to see shadows and reflections in the microwave region. I have to use waves as short as possible for best results, and that's why I want to reach a wavelength of 1 cm and below.

 

3) The simple fact that you can have a camera capable of seeing UV, VIS and IR is fascinating to me. Just change a filter (with a capable lens) and you can choose in which band to see. Isn't that amazing?

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Andy Perrin

I have a bit of a mix of what other people have said, especially dabateman and Stefano, but also my interest in computational imaging:

 

1) Definitely the "seeing what can't be seen" thing, combined with pushing the edges of what an amateur can image with any sort of camera. There is a possibility of exploring the look of everyday things and seeing something that maybe hasn't been visualized before, possibly not by any human. This is especially true when you push at the edges of or past the silicon sensor range, with UVB/UVC, LWIR, and SWIR, and possibly other ranges one day. I am interested in both the technical and artistic sides of this equally.

 

2) Using multiple photos in different wavelengths in combination to learn new things. This overlaps with Bernard's and Jonathan's interest in making wavelength-dependent tri-color images, but my interest goes beyond that to using other techniques like PCA/ICA to extract information from the images and make it possible to recover things like the "ghost signs" on old buildings, or to deduce the past history of fields based on aerial photography.

 

3) Sometimes I have more specific goals, like using the peak water absorption in near IR or SWIR for artistic purposes. By making careful use of features like this outside the spectrum (the Wood effect also comes to mind), we can achieve interesting artistic results, like black water and white trees.

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My interest in UV photography grew from a book I was writing regarding ultraviolet vision in trout. Naturally, I had to render approximations of the fish's view of his natural food items and how the fisherman could accommodate the trout's view when mimicking natural insects with artfully crafted artificial insects. Thus I struggled into the vast and perplexing world of UV photography. I tried to keep my costs down, so I bought German triplet and Tessar lenses from pre-1970. I took a Dremel to a low-cost Nikon D60 to bring the flange focal distance to that of the M42. I glued M39-42 rings on Exacta lenses to alter their mounts. But I couldn't find an inexpensive UV bandpass filter. I had a Baader U 48mm but I needed something that blocked NIR better.

 

My interest was drawn from trout to UV camouflage. I secured a patent for a camouflage made of nanoceramic oxides which could be applied to fabrics (and aircraft) without altering the original visible and NIR characteristics of the substrate. Then I needed to take UV photos in very low natural light without the option of supplementing the ambient light levels. This called for more effective NIR blocking than was available with the stock dichroic filters. Soon I was spending more time developing UV filters, both absorptive and dichroic, than any other endeavor.

 

Now most of my UV photography is strictly done in testing filters. Some of my customers are military and wish to observe the UV pattern of missile launches. Others have needs in astronomy. Recently, a consignment of filters went to the endeavor of observing polar bears. I had to devise a new filter that is 380BP53 for a customer with a discrete range. I like the sharp drop from the 380nm peak to 393nm. The FWHM is 332nm-385nm. Always something new.

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using other techniques like PCA/ICA to extract information from the images and make it possible to recover things like the "ghost signs" on old buildings, or to deduce the past history of fields based on aerial photography.

 

Andy - I don't know what "PCA/ICA" is, although I probably should. Can you point me at some explanatory info.?

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Not sure I classify the current situation as having time on my hands, my main concern at the moment is trying everything I can to keep my business going and earning a living. As for what I enjoy in this area;

 

1. Learning. I'm a scientist through and through, and came across UV imaging a few years ago as part of my work. Since then it has been a continual learning experience, and a fascinating one. it continues to be so, and I have no doubt will be for years to come. I try and publish what I can to act as a baseline source of information for others working in the area.

 

2. Making stuff. As part of my research I often need to get measurements done, and the equipment is not always there to do that (unless you have a bottomless money supply to pay big testing companies, which I don't). Since starting in this area, I've built something to allow me to measure flash spectra, a device to measure camera spectra response curves, and something to get lens transmission spectra in the UV. I spent a lot of my life being told 'that wont work' by managers in various jobs, so I find it very satisfying to build stuff which does work.

 

3. Imaging. Might seem odd that this is 3rd on the list. The images, especially of the sunscreens (which is what got me into this) I do mainly as part of my work. I find them interesting though, and they are very useful when trying to communicate how people are applying sunscreens. If through my work I can help reduce the number of skin cancers, even slightly, then the images have done their job.

 

As an aside but still relevant, I was approached last year by someone who wanted to try an get images of scars she was last with when she was a child after being abducted (she was working with a TV producer to produce a show reel for a crime documentary about what had happened to her). She had had images done by the police, but couldn't get copies of them, and wanted to know if I could replicate them. I did reflectance and fluorescence images, and brought out features not visible to the naked eye with normal visible light imaging. When she saw the photos, she broke down and was so thankful, basically because at times she struggled to convince others as to what had happened when she was younger. If I hadn't started in this research, and shared what I know, I would never have been able to help her gather the images and evidence she needed.

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I am really enjoying everyone's answers!

 

Birna's answer left out that she is a photographic *artist* at heart. She simply "sees" differently from most folks. :cool:

 

Reed, that was so cool to read that UV filters are being used for polar bear observation. Must be in Svalbard, eh?

BTW, here is a link to Reed's book about trout's UV vision and the trout flies made by fishermen: https://www.amazon.c...n/dp/0984086307

 

Jonathan, that was wonderful to read about how your UV photography helped another person deal with her traumatic event.

 

Many give the answer about "seeing the invisible". That really resonates with me, too.

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Thanks, Andrea. My points (1) & (2) taken together explain the most of it. Never take anything for granted. There is never any end to seeing more opportunities in any field.
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Andy - I don't know what "PCA/ICA" is, although I probably should. Can you point me at some explanatory info.?

 

Bernard the links your looking for are here:

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/3079-camera-spectral-sensitivity-using-matlab/page__p__24981__hl__pca__fromsearch__1#entry24981

 

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2849-revealing-the-faded-text-on-an-old-building-ad-with-ica/page__hl__component__fromsearch__1

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2985-field-patterns-visualized-with-ica/page__hl__component__fromsearch__1

 

Reading everyone's responses has been very enjoyable and looking into myself for a response was very self reflective to see what I enjoy.

 

With the current state of affairs I have been 5 times busier at work. So very little imaging time. I actually hope to be 10x busier and something really good gets out to really help people.

 

 

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