ultraviolet photography

cdd29

No longer a newbie, moving up!
Joined
Jun 16, 2016
Messages
122
Reaction score
156
Can others edit my Photos
Photos NOT OK to edit
so, I do alot of infrared photography with a fulkl spectrum converted (sees everything... UV, Visible, infrared) and want to play with UV photography. Not finding much online (probably looking for the wrong thing), but does anyone do this? Where to start? I have a UV torch & UV pass filter (365nm) but nor sure where to start
 
UV photography is quite a bit more challenging than Infrared on converted digital cameras.
Dr Klaus Schmitt's website Photography of the Invisible World is an excellent place to start

All the older style UV pass filters leak near IR (U330, U340, U360, UG11, ZWB2 etc) - this wasn't a problem with film which didn't see IR but our Full spectrum cameras are more sensitive to NIR than UV. There are some filters that have been coated to block this leakage (Baader make one) but the price is well outside my budget. A partial solution can be achieved by stacking a IR blocking filter such as BG38, BG39 & BG40 but these reduce the UV portion significantly.

Lenses are another sticking point, glass absorbs UV & many modern lenses are coated specifically to block UV. There are special quartz lenses made for UV photography - but I've never seen any for under £1000, and those that are around are rarely sold. Fortunately some affordable lenses aren't too bad. The 80mm El-Nikkor enlarging lens I brought (recommended by Klaus on the website above) transmits 54% of UV at 350nm the best of any of my photographic lenses. With other lenses fast lenses are typically particularly poor due to the larger amounts of glass present.

UV torches are generally not very power sources (sunlight is better) but you can adapt a flash gun to remove the UV blocking filter & provide a fairly powerful UV source (protective goggles are recommended if tacking this approach).

So far my efforts have never amounted to more than a vague proof of concept with some UV features barely visible - It's high time I had another go! Getting images of UV induced fluorescence has proved much easier, just needing a UV source & visual darkness with normal cameras...

One thing I've been meaning to try is using a single element quartz lens. This will not be corrected for the many aberrations, but hopefully the range of wavelengths being studied will be small enough that chromatic aberration isn't a problem & most of the rest are dealt with by using smaller apertures. I have a LONG list of things to try!
 
So how did I do first time out? UV torch with a 365nm filter over it (so hopeully getting mostly UV). Sony A7R3, unmodified & 105 macro. Subject was deceased when I found it, so no animals were harmed




DSC09853-lr.jpg
t, so no animlas were harmed.
 
Last edited:
So how did I do first time out? UV torch with a 365nm filter over it (so hopeully getting mostly UV). Sony A7R3, unmodified & 105 macro. Subject was deceased when I found it, so no animals were harmed




View attachment 275264t, so no animlas were harmed.
I wonder if a pinhole may be a solution for short wavelength UV to which glass is opaque ?
 
Last edited:
I wonder if a pinhole may be a solution for short wavelength UV to which glass is opaque ?
The answer seems to be Yes.

 
I did a series of uv pics I used a pet urine finder torce just on the edge of uv light.
I painted a number of items with uv reactive paint.
One thing I found that a uv filter cuts down the haze
 
So how did I do first time out? UV torch with a 365nm filter over it (so hopeully getting mostly UV). Sony A7R3, unmodified & 105 macro. Subject was deceased when I found it, so no animals were harmed




View attachment 275264t, so no animlas were harmed.
Very nice result, but if using UV lighting with a non modified & unfiltered camera you will be recording UV induced fluorescence rather than actual UV.
In my attempts so far UVIF has always given better results. UV imaging results are very different, & far more difficult.
UVIF is similar to what your eye see's when subjects are illuminated in UV - similar to the blues often seen from white fabrics lit with UV at nightclubs...
 

Most reactions

Back
Top