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UltravioletPhotography

Bill DeJager


Bill De Jager

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Bill De Jager

Hello everyone,

 

I’m very pleased to join this community. This site is exciting and I look forward to learning a lot.

 

My wife and I live in northern California. I’ve been an amateur botanist since age 14, with a focus on plants of California and western North America. Beyond plants, I’m an amateur geographer and traveler of the western U.S. My photographic experience consisted of very early exposure and enthusiasm followed by decades of stagnation, and more recently by an effort to develop better skills.

 

Ultraviolet and infrared photography have interested me for a number of years, and I put in a fair amount of time around 6-7 years ago in researching the technology and techniques. Unfortunately, my early and brief efforts on film didn’t work out that well (IR) and were a total failure (UV). Then I promptly damaged my expensive UV filter. Other photographic interests took priority for a time with respect to both time and money, and I postponed further work with UV and IR though I still planned to return someday.

 

During the following years I slowly accumulated old Pentax M42, Nikkor, and Pentax 67 lenses that might work for UV photography, in anticipation of eventually trying UV again on B&W film or getting a digital camera converted. The prospects of getting a UV-Nikkor or a Coast Optics APO macro seemed remote, but I developed a stable of old and (mostly) cheap lenses where I might find a few gems when the time came to test them.

 

This year I finally had the means to put in a major new investment in photographic equipment. Aside from other purchases, I took the invisible spectrum plunge and got a couple of cameras converted at Lifepixel to broad spectrum capability, with the intent of using them for both UV and IR. I chose a Panasonic GX1 (discontinued and cheap) in the Micro Four Thirds format for flexibility in using non-Nikon lenses, and a Nikon D5100 (refurbished and cheap) because it can safely mount pre-AI lenses with potential or known UV capability, while having a larger sensor. For reasons given at http://nikongear.com...for-ir-filters/, I chose to not get the Lifepixel UV filter installed inside the cameras. Instead, I use an external Baader Venus filter (http://www.astro-phy...s/baaderfilters) which passes light deeper into the UV range.

 

Thus armed, I started my digital IR photography in March this year and added UV in May. Along the way I was fortunate to find a UV-Nikkor at a great price. The performance of that lens in UV has been a real eye-opener (it’s great in visible too). The other lens I like for UV is the Nikkor 45/2.8 GN.

 

I’ve actually taken mostly landscape-type photos in UV rather than flower photos, but I expect to take more flowers when spring rolls around again. I've begun to work on presenting my UV photos in color but I know little about how to do this properly. So far I'm just experimenting in Photoshop Elements to see what I can come up with. I'll post a couple shortly.

 

Bill

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You are very welcome to our little community, Bill.

 

Read up on the UV colours in the technical forum to get some pointers.

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Hi Bill,

 

Welcome! - I am also relatively new to UV-photography. With my Panasonic G1 I can get decent UV white-balance, even with RAW converting in PS Lighroom. However, I had to create a profile with the DNG Profile editor (free from Adobe) to accomplish this.

You can find some discussions around the topic here:

http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/238-white-balance-wb-and-raw-development/

http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/258-white-balancing-uv-photos-in-lightroom/

 

Best, Nico

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Hello there, Bill. I hope you enjoy your UV journey.

 

Added Later: I lived in Davis for 4 years. Northern California is great!

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Bill De Jager
Thanks to all for the greetings! Nico, thanks for the links. Andrea, I also spent several years in Davis as a student before transferring.
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