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UltravioletPhotography

Hello from Bristol, UK


MylesH

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Hello all,

 

I'm really glad to be a part of the forum. I'm a producer of natural history documentaries, I've always loved UV photographs of the natural world and now I'm glad to say it looks like I'm going to be able to incoporate UV photography as a filming technique on a project I'm currently working on. At this moment in time I'm looking for plants, lichens, mosses and more in Australia (ideally in the south east) that I could potentially film with these techniques.

 

I'm also going to be looking for advice on the forum on how best to shoot UV landscapes.

 

Hopefully when we're done filming we'll have something remarkable to show for it. Fingers crossed!

 

Any help or advice from members would be hugely appreciated. I'm realising that there is much to learn in this field so I'm still picking up the right terminology for many of the facets of it, so sorry in advance if I ever ask for clarification.

 

All the best,

 

Myles

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Andy Perrin

Hi, welcome! We have plenty of Australian members, so if you look through the botanical sections I'm sure you'll find lots of things worth looking at. There are really two major requirements for UV photography: 1) a lens that transmits sufficient UV for whatever you are trying to look at, and 2) a filter or a stack of filters that passes UV and blocks IR sufficiently.

 

The lens section is being redone with spectroscopy right now, but many UV capable lenses are available that will work for landscape and flower/lichen purposes. Please see the data and comparisons here: https://www.ultravio...technical-data/

 

As for filters, the classic one is the Baader U, which is pricey, or you can get a stack of a UV pass filter and an IR blocker. There is one great IR blocker and that is S8612 2mm, so if you get that you can pretty much stick whatever UV pass filter you want in front of it.

 

Beyond those two key requirements is the need to white balance. We often use PTFE (Teflon) for this purpose, or Spectralon (which is fancy PTFE). If you don't white balance on something UV-neutral you can't see the colors very well. Oh, and one other thing: you can't use Adobe ACR to white balance, it is not capable of setting a UV white balance properly. There are many programs that can do it, including PhotoNinja.

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Welcome! There are a few members here who post landscapes with some regularity, and you can see some of these images in the "UV Scapes" subforum. How best to shoot such images is a broad subject, but we will be delighted to answer questions on specific points as they come up.
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Most welcome!! We are looking forward to seeing your results and happy to assist with answering questions to get there as well.
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eye4invisible

Welcome, Myles!

 

I'm originally from "Brizzle" (now living in Canada) so I'd love to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Temple Meads, and any other local landmarks in UV, whenever you return to the UK.

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