New Baader U flip question.

[Doug A]

@nfoto fantastic custom conversion. Guessing your friend cut an unmodified Baader U to fit the sensor and used it to replace the OEM glass? He did a great job. Your filter is definitely pink. 

 

Agree the filter stays cleaner protected by the mirror and shutter. Baader U filters don't corrode so the tech is doing a standard sensor cleaning every 2-3 years? Hydrogen peroxide would be a worry inside the camera.

 

Thanks for posting a photo of your custom D3200,

Doug A

[Andy Perrin]

I think hydrogen peroxide is only to be used on ionic filter glass, not dichroic filters like the Baader, in any case. 

[Guest]

It says on the box - edge sealed. If the filter is cut to size it looses that protection unless sealed again with who knows what they used.

 

I’ve cleaned my U filter about 3 times or monthly and I noticed that with the mirror finish every last bit of muck shows up. 
 

The instructions indicate do not leave residue on the filter because it could eat at the AR coating. 
 

I use lens puffer first then about 5 per side Kim Wipes wetted alternating between Zeiss lens cleaner and iso 91 percent using clean untouched nitril gloves. The gloves are the most important part. Otherwise you just move oils from your fingers across the wipe to the glass and would be there all day cleaning your fingers from the filter. 

 

Also,  I do have to spot clean every now and then if the edge of my finger touches the glass when removing it from the box etc. Finger prints show up really well on that glass. I'm actually glad they included that parchment paper bag. Hope I don't lose that. I cannot mount it with gloves because usually they get stuck in the threads. Small finger prints however do not require a full clean just a careful partial float of the oil and soak by wetting a Kim wipe.

 

 

[Andrea B.]

.....Perhaps I shouldn't answer late in the night when my wordblindness increases? Replace 'sensor' with 'subject' ....

both have an initial 's' and that triggers the wrong response in writing. My bad).

 

No problem, Birna. I am relieved that the world is not really upside down and that what I learned from your mentorship early on continues to be valid.

Typos and word glitches happen to us all. I am very bad at catching my own, so I am always grateful to UVP members for quickly catching such things.

 

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Sue, got your files. Thank you. I'm eager to see you get started correctly because your flower project is very promising. I look forward to seeing some nice additions to the botanical section. So whatever I can do to help, I'm there.

[Andrea B.]

Here are Sue's two files in Raw Composite form from Raw Digger. To review, these files have been demosaiced (with the usual scaling), but no camera color profile or ICC profile has been used or embedded. This gives us some approximate idea of what color the camera actually recorded. I would call it a yellow-orange ranging from brighter to darker.

 

After retrieving the files from Raw Digger, I made a 37.5% resize. Then I cropped.  After the crop, I fluffed up the files just a bit with a touch of sharpening and saturation from Photo Ninja. 

 

(I'm wondering if perhaps I should add srgb before display as a JPG here?)

Added Later:  All files in raw form like this look a bit dull.

 

BaaderU Normal

 

 

 

BaaderU Reversed

 

 

 

[Andrea B.]

I did not want to create a raw histogram for the data which included too much of the black background. I made the histograms from the following selection over the flower.

 

 

Looking at these two histograms, I don't see anything to indicate that there was anything different between the BU and the BU-Reversed which would indicate transmission of different kinds of light. Given that the photos were photographed indoors using UV-Led illumination, there probably was not much chance of any IR sneaking in there when the BU was reversed.

 

For the area I selected, you can see that the "Normal" photo was brighter in the center than the "Reversed" photo. It is not easy to get uniform lighting when using a UV-Led flashlight to paint the flower. The photos were underexposed by some amount. When I ran them through Photo Ninja I increased the exposure on each by 1/2 stop.

 

 

BaaderU Normal

 

 

BaaderU Reversed

 

 

 

[Andrea B.]

rgb render goes here

 

 

[Guest]

The photos do look different but was the UV torch fixed mounted to a stand or hand held? 

[Andrea B.]

Sue wrote above that she was hand-holding the UV-Led flashlight.

[Andrea B.]

Raw Digger can perform an Auto white balance based on the camera's white point (and on other camera characteristics). Here is that result. As expected, if you illuminate a subject with a narrowband UV-Led flashlight, the result can often be monochrome. There are some blue and yellow colors in these results, but it would take a monumental saturation push to bring them out.

 

BaaderU  Normal

No Photo Ninja fluffing applied.

 

BaaderU Reversed

No Photo Ninja fluffing applied.

[Andrea B.]

Here is an actual finished conversion made in RPP. The only problem is that I did not have any known white/grey standard to work with, so the white balance is a bit of a guess.  The saturation was set to 50 in RPP, which was better at bringing out some false color differences. Also it is always difficult to overcome initial underexposure while trying to maintain good contrast. Still this result does show that the ORF file has quite a lot to work with, so I'm sure Sue will do well her converted Oly and the BaaderU.

[JCDowdy]

Andrea,

 

I am quite impressed you squeezed that much false UV-color out of that narrow band 365nm LED reflection. 

Whenever I have WB off of Spectralon with 365nm LED the result was always a somewhat metallic monochrome. 

 

You are a real UV photo ninja.

[dancingcat]

I did one more go with the BaaderU.. same sunflower from the grocery store.

I tried to get to where Andrea B got to.. in camera and in Lightroom only.

Lighting Convoy S2+, handheld.

Lens Sigma 30mm DN

Filter BaaderU mounted normally (gold side out)

Olympus EM-1mk2 - in camera custom WB set to 2000K.

f/8, ISO 400, 2.0 sec.

The original as-shot comes out a bit blue.  In LR taking the WB tint slider left gets the yellow.. all the way left is 'really' yellow, too much I think.

LR settings for this image:

WB 2000K (custom in camera), no LR adjustment

WB tint -10.0

exposure +0.25

contrast +10

blacks slider pegged left

all else as shot

 

I think I'm going to be happier to get UV lighting more stable, maybe invest in an Adaptalux system as most of my work is going to be inside.

 

[Nate]

Looks good Sue. If you wanted to try out darktable for just the WB and export the tiff to PS or just use DT,

this shot was daylight WB only no in camera messing, opened in DT, and one click WB. Just an easy click if you wanted to try it.

[Andy Perrin]

Lightroom can’t set a UV white balance. I agree with Nate, use Darktable and export, or Photo Ninja etc. Lightroom literally cannot get to the required slider values needed for UV. It has limits built into the software that prevent it because (apparently) the engineers were “sure” no real photo would ever be that extreme…

[Andrea B.]

Sue, your sunflower looks good.

Maybe pull the highlights back a notch? There are some hot areas on the lower petals.

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Let me explain about the white balance. When Birna and I started the botanical section, we decided on the white balance which is typically produced in a broadband, reflected UV photo by a "white-click" on a UV-stable white standard such as PTFE or Spectralon. We decided on that so that any particular flower would have the same, or almost the same, appearance in reflected UV light across different gear platforms.

 

For the work you are going to do, it is not necessary to replicate this white balance unless you wish to contribute to the botanical section here on UVP. For the record, I definitely would like to see some nice wildflower contributions from Texas !!, please.

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I think the next thing for you to do is practice with the UV flash. When working indoors with a UV flash, I usually keep it off the hotshoe so that I can fire it at least 3 times during a 15-30" interval - side, front, side. This provides a nice uniform coverage of a floral subject. With experience, you will figure out how far from the subject you need to hold the UV flash while firing it multiple times.

 

When working outdoors with the UV flash, I use it on the hot shoe as a fill flash to shorten exposure times enough that I can (try to) freeze motion in the prevailing breezes.

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Also, it is a good idea to learn how to set an in-camera white balance which is measured through the filter-in-use and against some PTFE or Spectralon. The Olympus cameras are capable of measuring WB through both UV-pass and IR-pass filters according to UVP members here who have various Oly models. In-camera WB measurements are not always perfectly accurate, which is why we also photograph the PTFE or Spectralon to use during the conversion white balance step.

 

So, the very first UV photo you make in any session is the photo of the PTFE or Spectralon. Even if, for now, you continue to use Lightroom, making that session record against PTFE or Spectralon will provide you with a raw file to use later if/when you use a converter capable of attaining the WB for reflected UV work. Just don't blow out the PTFE photo. It won't give the proper WB in most converters if the white area is blown out.

 

 

Alternative:  if you want to skip the white balance thing altogether until the file conversion, then set the camera to Monochrome. That will let you see the details so that you can check for good focus and a good exposure.

 

The reason we use a WB measured in-camera or a monochrome setting, is to attain the best exposure. If you use a Daylight setting in reflected UV, for example, then magenta overwhelms details and gives you the wrong exposure time.  Also red easily hits the right-hand wall and puts the converter into highlight recovery mode.

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I'm going to make a Photo Ninja conversion of one of your files to see how that turns out.

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JD:  I am quite impressed you squeezed that much false UV-color out of that narrow band 365nm LED reflection. 

Whenever I have WB off of Spectralon with 365nm LED the result was always a somewhat metallic monochrome. 

 

There is usually some false color lurking if you punch up the saturation a bit. I try to be careful with that so I don't wind up with an un-natural look in the reflected UV photo. Given that these are false colors, I'm not entirely sure what an un-natural look might be, but you get my drift. Laughing.....

 

 

 

[JCDowdy]

I agree with Andrea, a UV flash will give you a broad UV spectrum and bring out the full false UV palette possible with your lens.

[Andrea B.]

Photo Ninja Conversion of BaaderU-Reversed

 

• Color correction
  • Light source: Daylight/Flash
  • Mode: Manual, dropper dragged over one of the dark areas on the petals.
  • Not ideal, but good enough.
• Exposure & Detail
  • Exposure: As shot
  • Exposure Offset -.50
  • Highlights -.20
  • Contrast 5
• Color Enhancement
  • Base style: Plain
  • Intensity: 50
• Noise Ninja
  • Color noise reduction
    • Strength 50

 

 

 

 

After cropping and resizing the conversion, I ran it back through Photo Ninja

for some sharpening and saturation boost. When Detail is increased in PN,

you sometimes have to pull back highlights again.

• Exposure & Detail
  • Highlights: -.05
  • Detail: 12
• Color enhancement
  • Base style: Plain
  • Intensity: 65
  • Yellow patch: 20
  • Blue patch: 20

 

 

 

[Andrea B.]

Annnnndddddd.......we have this stupidity:  Olympus will not let me download their Olympus Workspace unless I provide my Olympus camera serial number. Does this company not realize that there are a multitude of people in the world who make use of such software in their capacity as a photo editor for a newspaper or a magazine or someone working in art conservation or who-knows-what.

[nfoto]

It was important for Olympus to stress they wanted professionals to use their cameras, according to a recent dpreview article. Reality bites. No wonder Olympus is struggling.

 

I'll send you my Oly's serial number by PM.

[Andrea B.]

Thank you, Birna.

However, I actually solved the problem with a bit of internet prowling.

 

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Here is a screenshot from Olympus Workspace.

I was able to convert Sue's file using the Grey Point Specification dropper.

I could not get a proper WB in Workspace using the Custom White Balance (CWB) dropper. Interesting.

 

Given that it is free and has a nice display, Sue might want to set the "Grey Point" in Workspace

and then finish the files in Lightroom.

 

Olympus Workspace seems to have a good set of basic tools. Their Exposure and Highlight tools worked well.

The denoise works well, but requires some learning. I did not get much response from a Saturation boost.

 

I also note that Olympus Workspace sent my Macbook into a fan-running tizzy. I had to do a Restart to get rid of that.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Andrea B. said:

Olympus will not let me download their Olympus Workspace unless I provide my Olympus camera serial number.

 

Canon does this too with their Digital Photo Pro app for the 5D. Even though I don't own the camera the app does offer unique features for my Canon Pro-10 pigment inkjet printer...

 

[dabateman]

Andrea, 

Olympus just wants to make sure your not a robot. 

I think 1234567 works even. But yes you can go to Ebay and look up anyone's serial number and that will work fine.

[JCDowdy]

I thought Oly was (like Panasonic) able to achieve in-camera UV white balance.

Am I mistaken? 

[Andrea B.]

JD, that is also my understanding. I think Sue doesn't have any PTFE yet?