Hello from Germany

[argentum]

Hello all. I am slowly becoming friends with a number of birds that live near our apartment – mostly hooded crows, 2 jays, a slowly growing number of pigeons, and a totally unknown number of house sparrows. Over time they have come to trust me enough to visit the porch while I sit and read or hang out, sometimes they stay long enough to crack open some nuts and drink some water.

 

I've been reading about them and wondering about how they perceive things, and this has led me down the path of learning about UV photography. There seems to be some back-and-forth about how much UV light different birds can see and how much it interacts with their plumage... but I haven't been able to find enough UV photographs of birds to be sure of much of anything. So I'm prepared not to discover much but very interested to explore anyway.

 

My first goal has been to figure out whether I'd be able to take UV photographs of the birds on our porch at all. I am excited that they spend time with me there because it means I can use a short focal length and maybe a wider aperture. My fist -extremely rudimentary and unscientific- test of this was to try and take some photos on a cloudy day with my aperture as closed as possible. I found that I could get photos with the shutter open for 1/5 of a second that were exposed-enough and sometimes not a complete bird-blur.

 

I still have a lot here to read but from what I've seen so far it sounds like, in strong sunlight and with a wide open aperture, 1/5 of a second would be long enough to get some fun and interesting results.

 

So I've begun to research cameras, lenses, and filters. Like I said above, I still have lots to read, so I really appreciate any corrections / suggestions that you want to give but obviously don't feel obligated at all. I know many questions are already well answered on this forum! The rest of this I'm writing half for my own sake so that I can think through and identify what I need to learn.

 

In terms of cameras I'm thinking I'll need to get an old DSLR with live view (and/or hopefully mirror lock up so as not to scare the birds). Mirrorless are amazing but I don't think I'll have the money for one and, because I'll be doing the full spectrum conversion myself, I think the older gear will involve a little less soldering and ribbon cables. It seems like maybe a Canon 1100D or 50D would be good (and with Magic Lantern I could even do video!). But I've never known anything about the Olympus Micro 4/3rds system – the short flange focal distance makes it sound like a really good option in a situation where you might need to mess around a lot with lenses. Probably I should investigate that further.

 

In terms of lenses, I stumbled into an old Photax 35mm 1:3.5 M42 mount which I think will be good for a first attempt. I've read about using an enlarger lens attached to a bellows or tube but I believe that a setup like that would have an extremely narrow depth of field and, because I'll be doing manual focus on somewhat erratic subjects at a close distance, I want all the depth of field I can get.

 

Finally, for filters I'm thinking I'll try the S8612 1.5 - 2mm and either the UG5 or U-330 1.5 - 2mm. I'm thinking those might produce results that align in some ways with certain birds vision... And hopefully by letting a little visible light in I'll be able to increase the shutter speed also. But obviously I still have a lot to learn here.

 

That's it from me for now, I'm hoping to make some slow but steady progress with this over the next weeks and with a little luck I'll be able to share some UV images some day. In the meantime, here are some human-visible spectrum crows!

[Andy Perrin]

Hiii! Check out Bernard Foot’s posts — he has been doing stuff with bird vision for a while now.

[colinbm]

Good luck argentum.

I think it wise to steer away from a DSLR, they are too complex to convert & don't have the white balance capabilities as the newer mirrorless cameras.

The Olympus mirrorless is a better start & with adapters will fit mostly all lenses. You will find that mostly 52mm filter rings are the most useful size with step up & down rings.

For a single UV filter a Baader U is a good start.

 

The bird above is very like a Magpie in Australia. I have read that lots of birds in Australia 'sing', but not so many in the Northern Hemisphere ?

[Andy Perrin]

I don't know how much you wanted to pay, but you can get a used NEX 5 or 5N mirrorless and if you are willing to take a risk, some are already converted on eBay for ~$300US.

 

Example (and I don't know the seller at all, so no idea if they are trustworthy etc.):

https://www.ebay.com...uQAAOSwuMxf~uRX

 

I personally would never buy a DSLR for UV work.

[dabateman]

I might be turning into an Olympus fan boy. So remember that with my recommendation.

 

But the stock none converted Olympus Em1mk1, Em5mk2 that I own can see at and above 370nm. So if your interest in the U330/ug5/zwb3 filter with a S8612 2mm, then you wouldn't need to convert it.

I am assuming the Olympus Em5mk1 to perform similarly. I haven't tested my Pen-f for UV yet.

But used Em5mk1 and Em1mk1 I have seen under $200 in great shape. My recently acquired second Em1mk1 was mint under 900 shutter actuations and was $200.

The Em1mk1 has 3 known problems, though which add to it being cheap. First the rear dial can stop working. I have just figured out why. It uses an optical sensor like a mouse track ball. If that sensor gets dirty it can track the ticks on the dial. But you can take it apart or spray in compressed air and it will clear the dust away.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/witonosfreestyle.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/olympus-e-m1-rear-dial-repair-tips/amp/

 

Second the strap lugs can fall out. This is a none repair and means you can't rough up the camera.

https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/olympus-vs-olympus/omd-em1-vs-omd-em1-ii/

 

Third, the EVF seems to be prone to sun burn in if for some reason you point the EVF at the sun and hold it there. I never thought to do that, but does happen to people. The fix is to get an external evf as it has the connection and supports the tilting EVF4 with same resolution.

[argentum]

@Andy Perrin: Thanks! I will definitely check out those posts, and I don't know why I didn't think to look at Sony's older mirrorless systems (my main camera is actually a Sony haha). I'll definitely investigate that further.

 

@colinbm: Thanks, you're probably right about DSLRs and that's very good to know about filter sizes. I've also heard that Australia has a particular abundance of song birds, maybe there are fewer here? I'm not sure. I'm still learning to interpret the Jay's warnings about hawks and things. I just looked up Australian Magpies and they are beautiful!

 

@dabateman: Good to hear that you've had success with Olympus! I've always been curious about their systems but I've never had an opportunity to experiment with them -- very good info, maybe I should!

[Andrea B.]

Hello Argentum and welcome to UVP!

 

Photographing wild birds in UV is fairly difficult because of the exposure times required. And because birds don't sit still, alas.

 

To keep exposure times short would need good strong sunlight or a UV flash (which after one shot will scare the bird away!), a fast filter like the BaaderU and a *very* UV capable lens. It would also help to have a camera which has good capability at high ISO (like ISO-1600 or ISO-3200) without too much of the typical high-ISO noise. That requirement is probably best satisfied by a Sony-alpha of some kind.

 

Now that might sound daunting, but you can work up to it. The best thing to do is to get started and learn about UV photography in general. Then you can gradually add more sophisticated gear.

 

Here is a UV bird photo which I managed because the subject bird, a Roadrunner, has the habit of "freezing" in place for long enough intervals to catch a UV photo. Geococcyx californianus [Greater Roadrunner]

 

Here is a UV bird movie of a Goldfinch by member JC Dowdy:]

Well I couldn't get that video to load. Sorry!