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UltravioletPhotography

Cheap UV LED flashlights for outdoor UV?


montanawildlives

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montanawildlives

Does anybody successfully use those cheap (~$20) UV LED flashlights with maybe 20 individual LEDs to throw a little extra light on flowers or insects when taking UV pics outdoors? Is this a reasonable way to get faster shutter speeds? I'm asking because I am finding it nearly impossible to do outdoor shots without long shutter speeds (~1 second, even with danger-level ISOs).

 

Are LED UV lights potentially harmful to insects in the same way that the stronger (real) UV lights could be?

 

Thanks.

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Not often, as the colours are very limited due to the rather narrow spectrum fro the LED.

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2921-in-the-spotlight/page__hl__%2Bin+%2Bthe+%2Bspotlight__fromsearch__1

The Convoy S2 is a strong single LED torch we used those days.

 

I later discovered a more powerful torch that in the forum was named Nemo:

https://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/4051-convoy-s2-has-a-challenger-nemo/

That might be useable for you.

 

It is current hungry and need to be run on freshly charged good quality batteries for a reasonable output.

The intensity decays when the battery voltage gets under 3.7V when loaded.

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One thing to remember is that the intensity from a torch decreases to 1/4 when the distance is doubled. (the inverse square rule)

High intensity is only possible at short range and then the light spot is not that big.

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