Glowing flowers (UV induced visible fluorescence)

Thank You all for Your comments, and apologize for not responding in a timely manner. It was a hard week for me and I hardly had any time to rest and read Dyxum.

Neil, it always a great pleasure to read Your comments! I am trying to step away from the completely black background, but I did not find anything yet that works for me and that I can "control". The dust is the biggest problem! Also, I am running out of possible compositions and am afraid I will soon get boring.

Bass wrote: Thank you Alex. I ask because these LED's (I presume you are using Nichia 356nm NCSU033B) are amazingly hard to get hold of. For the uninitiated reading this, the LED alone would cost +100 Euros and that's if you can get one at all. They are incredible LED's which emit virtually no visible light.

Matthew, having a good UV LED is very important here, for two reasons. The sheer power of Nichia is great comparing to Cree and unnamed LEDs frommeBay. All of them leak a little visible light, and Nichia also scores best here, emitting the least amount of violet. This leaking visible light will quickly "kill" any but the brightest fluorescence, and even with Nichia I am using the best UV-pass filter I can get. That adds up to the cost of entry level DSLR...

Thank You Jet for Your nice words. I will try to continue experimenting with it, and here are two examples showing that not only flowers can glow nicely in UV. Both are immature fruits.

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5) Wood avens



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6) Common columbine



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Thank You all again, Alex

Edited by Alex H - 31 August 2012 at 20:54

Bass wrote: What filter are you using and would this be all you needed? For fluorescence I guess you use a non modified camera and normal lenses? I have the LED so am keen to give this another go as your images inspire me to try again.

Matthew,

You are correct, I use unmodified camera and Minolta 100/2.8 macro for these fluorescence shots, though any unmodified camera and any suitable lens will do.

As for the filter over LED light - I use Baader Planetarium U-filter ("Venus"). The same that I use for reflected ultraviolet photography. It is very good at suppressing visible and infrared!

The B&W 403 UV-pass filter will also work to suppress the blue leak if we to believe the spec. sheet. Just like Tiffen 18A and Schott UG1 and UG11. Note that the transmission properties of UG1 and UG11 strongly depends on the thickness of the filter - thin filters leak more outside their specified range.

I hope it helps, Alex

Three more pictures in this series:

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7) White Deadnettle - another version with different light and another background...



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8) May Lily



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9) Mountain (?) Cornflower



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Still trying to step away from completely black backgrounds...

Some time ago me and Maffe visited the exhibition "Expression, Personality and Emotion" by Joe Zammit-Lucia in my museum. The black background of those pictures was the choice of the artist, but it did not quite work for me. In my pictures, the dark background is a "byproduct" that is difficult to avoid Did not find a substrate yet, what is not dark red or glowing white under the light of my UV flashlight...

Edited by Alex H - 31 August 2012 at 20:54

Thank You, Jet. I do not want to "paint" the background in Photoshop - it will look unnatural. I tried paper and fabrics, but anything that was bleached during manufacturing (paper, cotton) glows intensively and overpowers any fluorescence that flowers produce. My best bet are synthetic fabrics and plastics. They are also easier to clean from dust, since the dust also glows brightly!

I will try again as soon as the sun comes out from behind the clouds and flowers open up again.

Alex I love your work but IMHO your frame and sig don't do it full justice. You might look at coming up with something a little more "subtle" or "smooth".      

Sorting through more shots from this summer, which already ended...

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14) Blueweed



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15) Caucasian stonecrop #1



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16) Caucasian stonecrop #2



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Thanks for looking, Alex

Thank You, Matthew. I still have few more from this summer I will post soon. But the autumn is here already

Flower shop is my only hope for winter months...