UV Swans

[Ural]

It was a relatively sunny day and I decided to test recently converted camera. Here is a photo of swans in Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. Gear used: Sony A7, El-Nikkor 100mm, S8612 x 1.5mm, UG1 x 2mm. This is my first UV experiment so perhaps WB is not very accurate. I used DNG Profile Editor, Lightroom and I applied white balance dropper on asphalt. For some reason PTFE (10mm) did not work as a white balance source that day.

 

[Fandyus]

PTFE should always work. That is strange.

[Doug A]

Awesome image. Your first UV attempt hit gold. We don't see lots UV wildlife. 

Thanks for sharing,

Doug A

[Andy Perrin]

Lightroom and Photoshop cannot set a UV white balance. The problem is the program. You should use PhotoNinja or one of the other programs that we know can set WB in UV. 

[Ural]

Thank you. Yeah, I should try PhotoNinja, maybe I will buy a license next month. Before that I am going to experiment with Lightroom.

I found an article on how to WB of IR photos by using DNG Profile Editor and Lightroom. Has anyone tried this approach (or Lightroom) for WB of UV photos?

[Andy Perrin]

I do not see how Lightroom can ever work (regardless of tutorial) for UV because it simply cannot reach the required color temperature. It has a built-in min/max range. IR and UV don’t behave the same way, and IR may work fine. 
 

There are some free programs like Darktable that CAN set a UV white balance and you would be better off working with that instead. 

[Nate]

Great pic of swans @Ural I second what Andy said about darktable. V 3.8.0 has some really great features

[Fandyus]

8 hours ago, Ural said:

Thank you. Yeah, I should try PhotoNinja, maybe I will buy a license next month. Before that I am going to experiment with Lightroom.

I found an article on how to WB of IR photos by using DNG Profile Editor and Lightroom. Has anyone tried this approach (or Lightroom) for WB of UV photos?

You don't have to buy anything, Darktable will do just fine. I use it and it's more powerful than Photoshop/Lightroom in many ways.

Edit: turns out Darktable has already been mentioned.

[nfoto]

Whilst Photo Ninja is the preferred tool for many "invisible" shooters, yours truly inclusive, other alternatives do exist if you need to massage the w/b of your files. RawTherapee is another freeware option besides Darktable, and The Gimp has become quite useful in its last incarnations.

 

Neither Photoshop nor Nikon's proprietary software can deal with these matters in a sensible manner.

 

All the programs mentioned share a more or less steep learning curve, though. Part of the invisible "fun" I suppose.

[Guest]

Ural, I use Sony Imaging Edge Edit to adjust white balance in post for my ARW raw files. That’s only if I forget to do a PTFE custom in camera. This app seems to work fine for me.

[Ural]

Thank you everybody! I've just tried Darktable, it works and WB seems to be a little better. Now I want to try Photo Ninja. 

I would really appreciate it if someone could try to adjust WB so we can compare the photos, here is a link with RAW file. Thanks!

 

[Guest]

 

Sony OEM tool. Dropper placed approx. location of blue rectangle. EV +1.6 after WB correction. Export Jpeg. Creative Style used was camera setting and I left that unchanged. Creative style can influence color cast and intensity.

[Ural]

Thank you @Blazer0ne, I did not know that Sony OEM tool can be used for WB in UV. I just installed PhotoNinja trial version and placed dropper at the same area, this is what I get, there seems to be a little bit light leakage from the bottom...

 

[photoni]

 

18 hours ago, Ural said:

here is a link with RAW file.

thanks Ural for sharing the RAW

these are crops of the original 4000x6000 file

I know the A7 well which I also have

this file is very underexposed and shot at 4000 ISO, Photoshop (Camera Raw) cannot recover the green channel

Capture One works best

 

 

 

[Ural]

Dear @photoni thank you for this image, yeah it looks like Photoshop is not very good for WB of UV. I just experimented with Photo Ninja, it is so convenient and it can even WB a very crazy combination of filters (for example BG3 + S8612).

May I ask a question? I noted that Sony A7 lens mount is not very tight, did you have the same light leakage at the bottom? Should I reduce ISO on this camera in order to reduce this green tint at the bottom?

 

[JCDowdy]

Don't see very many using UG1. 

 

The narrower UV bandpass might not be expected to WB to produce as full a false color pallet as BaaderU or UG11/U340 stacks. 

[Fandyus]

My version. Color balance auto in Darktable.

[photoni]

6 hours ago, Ural said:

did you have the same light leakage at the bottom? Should I reduce ISO on this camera in order to reduce this green tint at the bottom?

@UralI don't know, every camera is different,
green is likely to be accentuated by underexposure.
my rule (which perhaps will make others laugh) is to shoot in Raw with BW view, after the first shot I look at the isogram and I take two more shots with 1 or 2 aperture correction (more or less)
If I take the tripod I always set 100 ISO
by hand... auto Iso... although I know I will have a low quality.

.

I also added the Raw processed with Sony software (maximum brightness +2 stops)

[photoni]

11 minutes ago, Fandyus said:

My version

@Fandyus a nice gray ... but ... your interpretation seems to be taken at midnight in the moonlight, not during the day with the sun up :)))

[Ural]

Thank you @Fandyus, @Blazer0ne, @photoni it is clear that WB correction is creative process, just like photography in general. Photo Ninja, Capture One and Darktable work best for me. I just tried Capture One (below is the photo) this software is also very easy to use and it has clarity and saturation function, as well as advanced colour editor and colour noise reduction. It seems that Capture One even can be used as Lightroom alternative for visible photos.

@photoni I like your approach, I never used isogram and tripod for UV but will try, thanks!

 

[Fandyus]

14 hours ago, photoni said:

@Fandyus a nice gray ... but ... your interpretation seems to be taken at midnight in the moonlight, not during the day with the sun up :)))

Thanks. That is because the photo is very underexposed. Lifting the shadows too much would cause excessive noise.

[ulf]

32 minutes ago, Fandyus said:

Thanks. That is because the photo is very underexposed. Lifting the shadows too much would cause excessive noise.

When inspecting the RAW file in Fast RAW Viewer it looks more than 2 1/4 stops underexposed, but the UV world normally also is a very dark world.

 

Here is my 2000px wide version of converting processing in RPP64, and then noise reduction by Neat Image and final processing in PS6.

This is just a result of a quick fix that took me a few minutes. No fancy layer processing in PS. With more work you could get a bit further, but. It is much easier to get nice results with better exposed images.

 

Neat Image is great for really good noise reduction and RPP64 might be an alternative RAW-converter (Mac only). It is my favourite converter despite its really quirky UI.

The WB above is done automatically without any special selection.

[nfoto]

The basic issue with this scene is that it has been severely underexposed. One can retrieve some detail, but it is really hard to get sufficiently rid of the noise whilst not damaging any acuity. So rule #1 don't underexpose the darkish UV scenes.

 

We can readily observe a pair of Mute Swans; the female on water and the male proudly watching. They are in a a wetland thicket of Alder with clumps of Reed Mace Typha sp. and to the extreme upper right we can just about discern the branches of a conifer tree, probably a Picea.

 

Lower ISO and less noise would provide far more details. No harm using a tripod, is there?

[Ural]

I like @ulf version, which is bright and clear despite super underexposed photo. I've just tried Neat Image and it is possible to lose details if you pull Noise Reduction Amount too much, so you need to be careful with this package. I am agree with Birna and @photoniit is better to use tripod and reduce ISO, or simply do not shoot when there is no light :-) Below is the photo corrected with Capture One and Neat Image, not many details there as I increased Noise Reduction Amount. 

 

 

@nfoto you are right that is branch of a very old Picea in the upper right corner.

[Guest]

I revisited your RAW file and in preview it is difficult to tell that it was underexposed. You have to look at the histogram I guess because it wasn't until I performed the WB that it showed up as needing plus EV. Now, I also tried to do the WB again in the Sony Edit tool except this time I didn't use the dropper, but instead I used area average rectangle and the results are more neutral tint. In fact the dropper is a little random. You can click the same location 5 times with the dropper and get 5 different results. Clarity was added and edge noise reduction was reduced. Plus 2 EV. As they float through the water I am not sure ISO 100 would allow you to get the shutter speed needed to eliminate motion blur. You shot this at 1/100 so can you get away with 1/15 on mono or tripod as it floats with moving water and reeds? A BSI sensor would have probably given you the bandwidth at ISO 4000 to add 2 EV in post with better results.