regit
Established
Disclaimer: This may or may not be your cup of tea (coffee), but if it is, it can bring in “new light” to your photography (literally speaking) and it can be a bucket-load of fun 🙂
Dear all, I'm posting this as an attempt to spark some interest in invisible light photography. You may or may not have heard about UV photography, but for those who haven't, in a nutshell, it is about capturing reflected UV light. Technique-wise, it is no different from capturing IR, the only difference is that you'll be doing from the other end of the light spectrum.
Currently, most pictorial UV photography work is done in digital and Nikon D70 being the best for the job... And no, not all DSLR can capture UV well, not the D2X or D200 and none from the Canon camp for example...
But capturing long-range UV on film on the other hand, is quite doable in all kinds and types of film camera. Recently, I've found that capturing UV with Leica (or any RF) is one of the best ways to do so on film. But before the specifics, let’s see what UV photography has to offer.
The applications of UV photography range from police forensic to skin treatments, but the most common application as a starter (and tester) is to capture the guiding nectar patterns found on some flowers. The common dandelions for example, while appear to be all yellow to ours eyes, actually has differentiated nectar guide for insects. This guide can be seen under reflected UV but remains invisible under normal lighting. Here's an example...
As a photo hobbyist, you're of course not restricted to capturing flowers, but almost everything that tickle your fancy. Capturing human subjects for example, will give you really dark skin-tones (imagine using an orthochromatic film with a really dark-blue filter) …
… or you can simply let your imagination go wild ... (a composite of 3 UV photos)
So where does Leica (or RF) fits into this equation and why is it good for UV photography?
Here're why:
1) Like post-800nm IR filter, UV filter are black filter. When used on SLR where viewing is blocked by black filter, there're much filter-swapping involved between framing and shooting, you know this if you do IR on SLR... hardly any good for fast street actions. But with a RF and its separate viewfinder, all you need is to frame (focus) and shoot.
2) Apart from a few $5k-upwards lens like the UV-Nikkor 105/4.5, there is a focus-shift involved when taking UV photos, just like IR. But the focusing mechanism on the RF is independent from the collimation of the lens. That is, you can easily collimate a lens for UV on an RF (though making it useless for visible light) but impossible to do so on a SLR since the latter is based on WYSIWYG and UV is something we can't see!!!
3) Finally, from my experience (with a M7 and MP), whatever Solms use as meter in the later Leicas, it seems to be sensitive enough to meter well and consistently with UV. With a SLR (Nikon), metering is sometime a hit or miss affair.
If you’re interested in UV photography, here's what you need to get started:
1) UV filter - There are many different type of UV filters to cater for different UV band/range, commonly designated by their peak UV transmission, i.e. Hoya U-340 peaks at ... 340nm 🙂 The cheapest and easiest way is to get a B+W 403 (similar to Hoya U-360) from B&H or Adorama.
2) Lens - Not all lenses passes UV. The rule of thumb is to use one that has the simplest optical design, preferably without coating and cemented elements. Canon Serenar 100/4 (a triplet) and old Elmar 50, Industar-22/50 (Tessar with only one cemented group) come to mind. Personally, I use the Helios-103 (even though it is a Biotar) simply because I had no other use for it 🙂 Collimation is by trial and error since no visible light means negating the use of ground glass. Typically, focusing points needs to be a tad closer. BTW, if you have a Zeiss UV-Planar for LTM, use it or send it to me if you don’t!!!
3) Film – Unlike IR, which go between $10-20 for HIE and RIE, almost all panchromatic B&W film is capable of capturing UV. The faster the better since with the UV filter, approximately 7-stops of light loss is common. Plus-X and Tri-X (with the help of diafine) works well from my experience ... Here's one from Tri-X...
M7+Helios-103+B+W 403+Tri-X@1600 in Diafine 4+4
But for colour, it is a bit tricky... firstly, almost all colour films don't respond well to UV (killed a lot of Portra, Reala, NPH/Z etc, along the way), with the exception of Fuji RTPII 64T (soon discontinued) and Fuji Natura 1600. On top of which, most pictures with most UV filters are not too exciting with the films that work, with the exception of Hoya U-330. For Natura, the only way is to order from Japan through something like Webpearl ... as for U-330, you can order one from Newport glass or similar optical company. Here’s one from Natura 1600 …
M7+Helios-103+Hoya U330+Natura 1600
So what?!?! You may ask after all these … As mentioned at the top of the post; this may or may not be your cup of tea. But if photography is about capturing light (reflecting your memories the way you want to remember them), then UV is another kind of light waiting to be captured…. Congratulation if you have made it to the end of the post!!!
Dear all, I'm posting this as an attempt to spark some interest in invisible light photography. You may or may not have heard about UV photography, but for those who haven't, in a nutshell, it is about capturing reflected UV light. Technique-wise, it is no different from capturing IR, the only difference is that you'll be doing from the other end of the light spectrum.
Currently, most pictorial UV photography work is done in digital and Nikon D70 being the best for the job... And no, not all DSLR can capture UV well, not the D2X or D200 and none from the Canon camp for example...
But capturing long-range UV on film on the other hand, is quite doable in all kinds and types of film camera. Recently, I've found that capturing UV with Leica (or any RF) is one of the best ways to do so on film. But before the specifics, let’s see what UV photography has to offer.
The applications of UV photography range from police forensic to skin treatments, but the most common application as a starter (and tester) is to capture the guiding nectar patterns found on some flowers. The common dandelions for example, while appear to be all yellow to ours eyes, actually has differentiated nectar guide for insects. This guide can be seen under reflected UV but remains invisible under normal lighting. Here's an example...
As a photo hobbyist, you're of course not restricted to capturing flowers, but almost everything that tickle your fancy. Capturing human subjects for example, will give you really dark skin-tones (imagine using an orthochromatic film with a really dark-blue filter) …
… or you can simply let your imagination go wild ... (a composite of 3 UV photos)
So where does Leica (or RF) fits into this equation and why is it good for UV photography?
Here're why:
1) Like post-800nm IR filter, UV filter are black filter. When used on SLR where viewing is blocked by black filter, there're much filter-swapping involved between framing and shooting, you know this if you do IR on SLR... hardly any good for fast street actions. But with a RF and its separate viewfinder, all you need is to frame (focus) and shoot.
2) Apart from a few $5k-upwards lens like the UV-Nikkor 105/4.5, there is a focus-shift involved when taking UV photos, just like IR. But the focusing mechanism on the RF is independent from the collimation of the lens. That is, you can easily collimate a lens for UV on an RF (though making it useless for visible light) but impossible to do so on a SLR since the latter is based on WYSIWYG and UV is something we can't see!!!
3) Finally, from my experience (with a M7 and MP), whatever Solms use as meter in the later Leicas, it seems to be sensitive enough to meter well and consistently with UV. With a SLR (Nikon), metering is sometime a hit or miss affair.
If you’re interested in UV photography, here's what you need to get started:
1) UV filter - There are many different type of UV filters to cater for different UV band/range, commonly designated by their peak UV transmission, i.e. Hoya U-340 peaks at ... 340nm 🙂 The cheapest and easiest way is to get a B+W 403 (similar to Hoya U-360) from B&H or Adorama.
2) Lens - Not all lenses passes UV. The rule of thumb is to use one that has the simplest optical design, preferably without coating and cemented elements. Canon Serenar 100/4 (a triplet) and old Elmar 50, Industar-22/50 (Tessar with only one cemented group) come to mind. Personally, I use the Helios-103 (even though it is a Biotar) simply because I had no other use for it 🙂 Collimation is by trial and error since no visible light means negating the use of ground glass. Typically, focusing points needs to be a tad closer. BTW, if you have a Zeiss UV-Planar for LTM, use it or send it to me if you don’t!!!
3) Film – Unlike IR, which go between $10-20 for HIE and RIE, almost all panchromatic B&W film is capable of capturing UV. The faster the better since with the UV filter, approximately 7-stops of light loss is common. Plus-X and Tri-X (with the help of diafine) works well from my experience ... Here's one from Tri-X...
M7+Helios-103+B+W 403+Tri-X@1600 in Diafine 4+4
But for colour, it is a bit tricky... firstly, almost all colour films don't respond well to UV (killed a lot of Portra, Reala, NPH/Z etc, along the way), with the exception of Fuji RTPII 64T (soon discontinued) and Fuji Natura 1600. On top of which, most pictures with most UV filters are not too exciting with the films that work, with the exception of Hoya U-330. For Natura, the only way is to order from Japan through something like Webpearl ... as for U-330, you can order one from Newport glass or similar optical company. Here’s one from Natura 1600 …
M7+Helios-103+Hoya U330+Natura 1600
So what?!?! You may ask after all these … As mentioned at the top of the post; this may or may not be your cup of tea. But if photography is about capturing light (reflecting your memories the way you want to remember them), then UV is another kind of light waiting to be captured…. Congratulation if you have made it to the end of the post!!!
