Factual errors in Book "Laboratory Imaging and Photography: Best practices for photomicrography and more"

[JMC]

I was recently give a copy of "Laboratory Imaging and Photography: Best practices for photomicrography and more" by Michael Peres, published in 2017. Within the book there is a chapter which covers aspects of UV photography (Chapter 7, Advanced Laboratory Photography Methods). Reading through this, it became apparent that there a number of errors in the book regarding UV imaging. I'm going to highlight these here, in case anyone is looking for information on whether this book is useful for those interested in UV photography. My list may not be complete, but covers the main issues I found. Also, I cannot comment on the rest of the book as that is not my area of expertise.

 

Some of the key issues:

 

Page 142, in the cameras section, the author states "There are companies that will remove the IR blocking filters from a sensor and this is popular for IR enthusiasts. Removing the filter allows the camera to be used more effectively for IR photography but will not directly play a role in performance for UV applications".

JMC: Obviously this is not correct for the majority of cameras as the internal IR filters need removing for UV imaging. In the early days of digital there were some internal IR filters which were very leaky to UV, but with pretty much every camera now removing the IR filter is a prerequisite for using the camera for UV imaging.

 

Page 142, under the lenses section, the author says "Most type of glass will transmit near UV 300-400nm radiation, but glass will absorb and not transmit far UV 200-300nm. To photograph using far UV, special lenses will be required. Nikon and Canon sell lenses that are made of quartz or fluorite, for this application."

JMC: Couple of issues here. Yes some glasses will transmit down to around 300nm, but by the time individual elements are arranged together and coatings and/or adhesives are applied, the UV transmission is severely restricted. I know of no 'standard' lens which would be any use at 300nm, even old simple uncoated lenses. Also Canon do not make dedicated UV lenses, nor have they ever as far as I am aware. They do of course use fluorite lens elements in some lenses, and this is what may be leading to some confusion.

 

Page 142/143, again in the lenses section, "When photographing with near UV, a high quality macro lens will have advantages, but almost any fast lens will work. It is important to work with a fast lens because of the low brightness associated with most UV emissions and camera sensitivities in this region of the spectrum.".

JMC: Yeah, not sure where to begin with this. Fast lenses generally more elements and more interfaces, and are not the best bet for UV. Also, given the focus shifts which typically occur in the UV when using 'normal' lenses, trying to shoot at low f stops makes focusing very difficult for those without live view.

 

Page 143, in the filters section, "A very good filter for UV photography is the B+W UV Black (403).".

JMC: While they do talk about some filters exhibiting IR leakage for some filters, nothing was mentioned for the 403, which could lead the reader to believing the 403 can be used for UV without additional IR blocking. No mention of Hoya U series filters as being suitable in the ones they list, although they do mention Schott UG11. They say that Baader make a 'very high quality UV transmitting filter' but don't say what it is. No discussion of the effect of filter thickness, or how much out of band blocking is needed.

 

Page 146, figure 7.10, UV images with the B+W 403, a Nikon D300s and 105mm Micro Nikkor lens.

JMC: No mention of IR blocking being added to the filter, or even if the Nikon d300s had been modified for multispectral imaging.

 

As you can see there are some serious issues here for anyone looking to learn about UV photography, so I cannot recommend this book for anyone looking to improve their UV imaging.

[Andy Perrin]

Goodness, from that list of errata, I almost wonder if the author has ever done ANY UV imaging himself. This almost looks like it was written from hearsay or guessing.

[dabateman]

Importantly, was there anything good or useful from the chapter?

 

[Andrea B.]

Editor's Note: Jonathan, for increased clarity I started your comments on a separate line with a JMC tag.

 

I'm really surprised by this author's lack of knowledge about reflected UV photography and its gear.

 

Also curious, what do the example UV photographs look like in his book? OK? Or do they show some IR contamination? Just curious.

 

No mention at all about using UV illumination? Sure, "fast" lenses let in more light but what about the drawback of decreased depth of focus? Fast lenses are a mixed blessing in visible light and of little use in reflected UV light due to their complexity, as Jonathan has noted.

[bobfriedman]

I am NOT buying that book.

 

Jonathan.. why not write a book.. I am guessing you have what it takes to write a first class text.

[JMC]

To answer your questions/comments.

 

Andy, it reads to me a bit like the author had more experience of UV imaging in the film days (given the strange conclusion around the sensors not needing to have their IR filters removed), but then talking about the use of fast lenses makes me question even that. From what I have seen in the skin research world, most people who venture into UV imaging do so with the assumption that "well I've done visible light photography, so it's just like that but with shorter wavelengths, isn't it?". In my opinion, what was written here has some parallels tho that.

 

David, to be honest I haven't gone through the rest of it. After reading about the UV I gave up. If we go into another lockdown, I may give it another go.

 

Andrea, thanks for editing my post and putting in the JMC tag - much clearer. The Figure 7.10 I refer to above was of UV image of sunscreen on a face. The sunscreen looked darker than the skin, but wasn't as 'black' as I would have expected it to be. Bit of a difficult subject to tell whether there was much IR contamination though. Not sure what they specifically said about illumination, I didn't get that far.

 

Bob, thanks. I tend to get involved with writing chapter for books and research papers rather than a whole book. I'm just not that organised for writing a complete book (plus my idea of what is 'interesting' wouldn't sell many books). "No, no, let me tell you about the subtle differences between the internal blocking filters of Canon and Nikon cameras. Come back, don't run away. Stop running, THIS IS IMPORTANT"..... Yes, I can just imagine the publishers face now :)

[bobfriedman]

"No, no, let me tell you about the subtle differences between the internal blocking filters of Canon and Nikon cameras. Come back, don't run away. Stop running, THIS IS IMPORTANT"..... Yes, I can just imagine the publishers face now :)

 

I guess you can't tell them that Bob would buy the book.

[dabateman]

So if locked down you might read it. Ok sounds like a best seller to me, best to avoid.

 

You could try to write a book or just a bunch of review chapters. I have been hit and miss on the whole write a book thing when asked.

 

At first I remembered the research wanker index. The ratio of number of peer review papers to review articles. You didn't want that to be too high or you were just a wanker. Now that I haven't published for years, I may just need to conceed.

 

Then its seems no one really reads books so much anymore. Blogs, web posts and even forum discussion seems to take over.

 

[JMC]

If nothing else, it provides me with a great reference when writing papers, for the misinformation that is out there on UV imaging.

 

David, ss for the wanker index, I'm not sure I've written any review articles - all that I do is new research - so I guess by that metric I'm in the upper quartile of the wanker scale. Although I have written some book chapters which may bring me down the wanker ranker a bit.

[StephanN]

Well, Jonathan, why not team up with some other members from around here, and write a book together :-)

[Stefano]

For sure if some members team up there will be enough knowledge to write a book. There are tons of things to say.

[dabateman]

Well out of my last 22 publications only 10 were research papers.

So I am already over the edge.

Time to start writing a book.

[Andrea B.]

We have had at least 3 books from members here, only 2 currently active - Adrian and Enrico.

 

I'm not actually sure how many books about UV photography the world can support !!!

Or websites either!

 

But don't let that stop you.....

[enricosavazzi]

There are more questionable statements in Peres' book, for example the caption of Fig. 7.9 says "A Micro Nikkor 105 mm and a Canon 50 mm lens have infrared and UV focusing correction dots on the lens". It is probably the first time I hear of UV focus correction dots. There is no guarantee that focus shift in the NIR goes in the same direction and amount as focus shift in the UV, and I have seen the opposite in some lenses.

 

In other chapters I have also noticed "simplified" discussions of equipment and methods that I find not quite satisfactory. In-depth discussions seem to be rare throughout the text.

 

The above quote should be short enough to qualify as "fair use" of copyrighted materials. If not, admins are welcome to erase it.