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Cyanicula caerulea [Blue Fairy]


DaveO

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Oldfield, D. 2014. Cyanicula caerulea (R. Br.) Hopper & A.P. Br. (Orchidaceae) Blue Fairy. Flowers photographed in visible and ultraviolet light. http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/topic/995-cyanicula-caerulea-blue-fairy/

 

Maldon, Victoria, Australia

Maldon Historic Reserve

17 August 2014

Australian Native Wildflower

 

Synonym

Caladenia caerulea

 

Comment

Cyanicula caerulea is a common plant of the Victorian Goldfields, frequently found in box-ironbark forests and woodlands.

 

 

Visible Light: Pentax K-5 Full Spectrum Modification, Nikon Rayfact PF10545 MF-UV 105 mm f/4.5 lens, Metz 15 MS-1 flash, 1/180 s @ f/16 ISO 200, B+W UV/IR Cut Filter.

post-28-0-05849300-1408616181.jpg

Image Reference: DO53458

 

Ultraviolet Light: Pentax K-5 Full Spectrum Modification, Nikon Rayfact PF10545 MF-UV 105 mm f/4.5 lens, Nikon SB-14 flash, 1/180s @ f/16 ISO 200, Baader UV-Pass Filter.

post-28-0-44037300-1408616210.jpg

Image Reference: DO53461

100% magnification

post-28-0-64050200-1408616229.jpg

 

References:

Backhouse, G. and Jeanes, J. The Orchids of Victoria, Miegunyah Press, 1995, p. 58.

Ross, J.H. and Walsh, N.G. (2003) A Census of the Vascular Plants of Victoria Edn 7.

 

Atlas of Living Australia http://bie.ala.org.a...nicula+caerulea

 

 

Published 21 August 2014

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This is as high as this image will allow, one pixel on the image is one pixel on screen (supposedly). When I take a shot I always look at it on the back of the camera and twiddle the magnification thingie to see if it looks in focus, but more often than not when I get it home and download it and look at 100% I'm disappointed that I JUST missed the focus on what I thought I was aiming for. I always have the camera mounted on a Manfrotto focussing track and if I remember I sometimes fiddle with that a bit. I've never been really comfortable manually focussing 35 mm, I was a Haselblad waist level finder with magnifier sort of photographer in my B&W landscape days Alas. I don't really get on with live view all that well either. So, it's amazing that the focus on this shot really did turn out as well as it did. I guess I have to keep telling myself that I don't need pixel level sharpness.
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You are right about us photographers fussing about pixel-level sharpness too much. After all, when you look at a capture at 100% (pixel in file = pixel on monitor), you are actually staring up close at an incredible huge enlarged rendition of the image.

 

What I had in mind was trying to get a higher magnification in the first place. If you shoot at 1:1 life-size, a very good lens just barely starts to resolve say conical cells on a petal. In order to understand their shape and pattern, the primary magnification must be brought up several times. At 3:1 resolution should suffice to show these cells and how they differ from epidermal cells.

 

On a side note, if you post 100% crops and they comprise more than 800 pix in any direction, forum software will automatically scale them. Thus you have to click on the image to show it in true 100%.

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I'm disappointed that I JUST missed the focus on what I thought I was aiming for.

 

We all do this !! Working closer to the subject as we do when documenting flowers gives us a little less depth of field to play with. Also I've been thinking that just because our UV-Nikkor style lenses are corrected, they are not perfectly corrected. So a little oof can sometimes happen if we have focused in Visible then shot in UV. But f/16 should work fairly well to cover minor focus errors.

 

Do you have an LCD finder contraption so that you could use Live View to focus your shots in UV? Shine the UV torch on the subject, zoom in on the subject with Live View using wide open aperture, focus, stop down and shoot. This is about as precise as one can get and does tend to work every time barring other disturbances. Granted, using a finder and torch in the field can take some time to get a feel for but it can ensure you land your focus point where you want it to be.

 

A wild guess, but probably 95% of slightly missed focus when shooting UV in situ is because of breezes and natural movement of an organic subject. Flowers can turn right out from under your focus in UV as they follow the sun. Little bugs crawling inside them can make them move. Dropping pollen, raindrops, landing bees. It is a wonder sometimes to me that we can get a UV shot at all outside the studio. :D

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When I used the quartz lens, I had to refocus by a massive amount on going from visible to UV and I found that outdoors I could do that pretty well using Liveview on the K-5 without the need for any additional UV illumination. I must try again to check the focus in UV more often using the UV-Nikkor even though that usually gives me a crick in my neck that I avoid by using a right angle finder for the visible shot. The biggest effect, I'm quite sure, is the breeze that's always there to some extent in the field.
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