What you need to know if you are interested in shooting Ultraviolet pictures

Introduction

I waited more then 6 weeks until I got all the stuff I needed to tinker my cam into a UV Camera. Now I am ready for the next and also the last step with this great toy, shooting outdoor under ultraviolet light.

I ´ve learned in the last couple of days that in many photographers view there is a different meaning about the term "ultraviolet". This is rather faszinating because all of us speak about shooting pictures under sunlight. Compared with infrared photography when using an Hoya R72 filter this preview gives you a good advice how to shoot in ultraviolet. Nevertheless is it not 100% pure UV-A radiation you will record in your digital camera if you follow my instructions. Its like shooting false color infrared pictures but at the other side of the visible spectrum. But one thing is sure, with a Baader U-filter in front of your lens you can call it definitely ultraviolet!

What sounds so easy here is one of the real difficult things in photography, maybe not far from impossible concerning to the easy digital daylight photography which everybody can do. What can you expect to learn from this review? Nothing if your name is Vivek, Bjorn, Akira, Regit or one of the other pros out there (Hi Guys). This is just a starting guide for beginners in Ultraviolet photography with a Nikon D50, D70, D1, D100 or so.

I believe that everyone´s real interested in this theme will own at least one modified DSLR already. Okay, if this is fact lets talk about what you have to get to start the exciting experiment- the ultraviolet photography. First we have to talk about the lens you will need. Here we have to distinguish between photographers who wants to make "real" ultraviolet pictures or somebody same me who is only interested in getting beautiful results.

There are just a fistful lens available which let ultraviolet pass until the sensor from your cam. What does that mean? Easy to tell. Normal Glas-Elements inside every lens are coated, and even when the glass they were made from the sort (BK-7) which should would let a small amount of ultraviolet light pass, but the multicoating on every single element prevents this. Therefor we have to find a lens which fulfill our needs better.

As some people know there are some specialiced UV-Lens, like the UV-Nikkor 105mm from Nikon. Some other Manufactors also had some special lens like this one long time ago, but all of them were very expensive and not longer available. Thats why I dont want to make a dissertation on that. I am the photographer and not the scientist. I love to take pictures all day and all night long, but I dont want to start a second career as a writer.

I can understand that Bjorn Rorslet is happy with his UV-Nikkor he own, I would be happy too, but I can´t afford it. Another tip was to remove the lens coating from the Nikkor E Series 35mm lens. I dont want to say to much, but call your local optician and ask him if its a good idea to remove the lens coating with a abrasive. This can´t be a good advice, but.... as I read in many threads, the people believed him and did same he told them. Anyway, the only thing you will get from the removal with an abrasive is unsharpness due to the dents you have polished into the glass element. And.. its really not essential with my camera, because it works great with the coating ;)

Chapter 1

How to built an affordable good quality lens which is also suitable for UV Photography?

My personal recommendation is the following. Try to get the EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 on Ebay for around 100 to 200 USD. This lens is made for Enlargers and not for photography, and it has an very uncommon 39mm mount and no focussing unit either, but with some simple changes you can use it on every DSLR camera.

But lets start with all the items you have to buy after you got your EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5. Because this lens doesnt fit on your Nikon mount you have to get an M42 to Nikon Screw Mount Adapter for around 3 USD. Yes I know we need M39, but there is no M39 to Nikon screw mount adapter, thats why we have to start with the M42. After that you need to buy an M39 to M42 lens screw adapter ring which costs just around 2 USD, plus aditional shipping for sure! This ring is also very importend for the focusing in the furture as we will see soon. The next item we need is the old Nikkor Extension Rings Type F . Not so easy to locate nowadays, but if you search one or two weeks on Ebay, you will find one for 30 to 100 USD.

Lets take a look what we have got:

1.) The EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 enlarging lens

2.) The backside of the M42 screw mount adapter

The front of the M42 screw mount adapter

3.) The M39 to M42 screw adapter ring

4.) Nikkor Extension Rings Model F

4.) Adhesive for metal (superglue)

The next step is now to understand that our new lens (EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5) has NO autofocus and cannot be foucsed manually too. You have to decide what you want to shot and fix the lens at the right focal length befor starting. So, lets say we want to make landscape pictures, okay? In this case you can follow my instructions and screw the M39 to M42 ring inside the M42 screw mount adapter until only 2mm are visible outside. Because of my childish english I would recommend you to look at the picture instead of guessing what is the meaning of my sentence :-).

Now you have to take the K1 ring from the extension rings (only the K1) and put it together with our M42 adapter and the M39 to M42 screw ring!

Now we can pre-assamble this two adapters.

What we got now is just 8mm thick when seen from beside.

Now we are able to attach the EL-Nikkor 63mm to this Adapter combination.

The completed Lens

For just 230 USD to maximum 300 USD you can get a complete and more importend suitable lens for ultraviolet photography. Compared with the last auction result (3600 USD!!) on Ebay for an UV-Nikkor 105mm (used item) this could be interesting for many photographers I believe.

Chapter 2

Evaluate the quality from our new UV lens

Now we are ready to attach the new toy to our digital camera and check optically where the highest sharpness occurs with the open aperture (f/3.5). Do not close the aperture for this first test. Because of the design of the lens (made for enlargers) the depth of field is real wide when the aperture is stepped down to f/11 or f/16. Even if this lens will be an 94.5mm lens on our DSLR Bodys (63mm x 1.5= 94.5mm) you can expect to get sharp images from around 4 meters to infinity at f/16!

The next step can be done but must not if you dont want too. The problem is that different wavelengths produces different focal lengths. Whats sharp under normal daylight is not sharp under Infrared light and also Ultraviolet light demands a new construction of our new mount adapter. Because I want to get perfect results afterwards and I dont want to handle rickety parts every time while shooting, I decided for myself to assamble 2 or 3 complete adapters for my major needs.

If you want to get perfect sharp results you should fix the M39 to M42 screw ring now into the M42 mount adapter with a superglue same I am showing in the next picture. But dont forget, .... check first where the highest sharpness occurs when viewing through the viewfinder. You can only check this optical by yourself and have to trust your eyes ;-)

Please be very careful when using the superglue! Dont mount it wet on your cam. This will damage your mirror and the sensor! Wait at least for 1 hour befor you mount your EL-Nikkor again. If you are in hurry you can accelerate the process with a simple hairdryer. But please.. open the window when doing that. The vapours from the glue are harmful.

Now you are ready to shoot your first pictures with your new lens.

If you are just a beginner in ultraviolet photography you will be surprised about the unbelieveable quality this lens is able to record. Optimized for micofilm enlarging this lens is a real gem. Tremendously sharp without any post processing in photoshop.

Here is the first Test Picture for you from the lens we just built by ourself ;-)

Testphoto 01 (unprocessed at 1850x1238 pixel)

Testphoto 01 (unprocessed 100% at 1850x1238 pixel)

This picture was made with my Fuji Finepix S3 Pro UVIR with the EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 and the B+W UV/IR Cut Filter #486 at f/8.0 and 1/250sec (-1.5EV) Iso 100.

Because this picture is so sharp and I really cant believe what I saw, I made some testshooting with my AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 afterwards. This lens is famous for his tremendous quality and should be able to beat this old timer easyly I thought. But lets see the results by yourself. Both pictures were made with exactly the same settings!

Testphoto 02 (unprocessed at 1850x1238 pixel)

Testphoto 02 (unprocessed 100% at 1850x1238 pixel)

I know what you guys think now... that can´t be true.... how can this 30 year old enlarging lens beat the new AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 so clear in every case? Idont know the answer to this good questions, but what I can tell you is, I will use this lens from now on, and not only for UV Photography.

After this great result from our new built EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 we can go to the next level in ultraviolet photography.

Chapter 3

Suitable Filters for ultraviolet photography

There are so many possible filter type combinations that I dont want to start here telling you about it. First because there are many photographers who know much more about this theme (Bjorn Rorslet), and second because there is only 1 filter which guarantees that the recorded images can be called "ultraviolet pictures". There is still some infrared contamination which produces a nice, because much darker wooden effect in our picture. And there is also a small amount of visible light from the beginning of our spectrum. Nevertheless this leak from the Baader U-filter is not interfering, in true its a big benefit for us. As violet can be converted easyly inside photoshop to blue you will be able to produce stunning false color ultraviolet pictures with deep blue sky without any problems.

Many professionals like Bjorn Rorslet use the Hoya U-360 (or the B+W 403)filter combined with the Schott BG-38 or 40. The problem with this 2 filters is only that they are not available any more. Okay, you have a friend in japan (my special thanks to akira sakamoto) you can probably locate them in 52mm diameter. But remember, those filters are expensive and difficult to sell, so decide wisely. The much better choice for our new EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 lens is a very special filter from the Baader Planetarium in Germany. The filters they produce are desgined for astronomical requirements. There we are already at our next problem, the diameter from the filter we need.

The Baader U-Filter

This very specialised filter was designed to make cloud structures from the planet Venus visible when viewing with an refelctor telescope. It enables amateur astronomers for the first time the view to this amazing natural phenomenon on Venus. The transmissons curve shows that only wavelengths between 300nm and 400nm can pass this filter. That is outside the visible range and because this filter reaches its peak transmission (80%) at 350nm its absolut perfect for out EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 lens. All wavelengths between the range of 200nm and 1500nm (except 300-400nm) are completly blocked by this U-Filter. The could also call it UV-A only filter if you ask me.

You ask why?

To make a long story short. Some of the EL- Nikkors (enlarging lens) are designed for wavelengths down to 350nm! But because of the design of refelctor telescopes the filter size is limited to 31.8mm which wont suits well for most of our lens. The front diameter of the UV-Nikkor 105mm is 52mm, and this is at the same time the most common size for filters.

Good luck that Regit posted something really helpful about mounting this Baader U-filter on the EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 already (thanks Regit) The other possibility is to talk with the technican from Baader Planetarium and order this Filter with a mount to 52mm. Then you need to buy only one step up ring from the filter sizre from our lens (40.5mm) to 52mm to connect the Baader U-filter to our EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 lens.

I choosed the easy (and also little bit more expensive) way and ordered the whole package including the following parts for 220 USD including shipping with UPS from Germany to Austria.

At least I was lucky today and got the Baader U-filter! In the picture below you can see that you need 4 pieces if you want to mount this very, very small filter (31.8mm diameter!!!) on your lens. I know, you will ask me now why 52mm if the 63mm lens we just mounted has 40.5mm, right? Easy to tell. Baader Planetarium cant deliver only this step up/down combination. So what you need to mount is in front of our EL-Nikkor 63mm f/3.5 is.... a step up ring from 40.5mm to 52mm. Surprisingly the Baader filter is just 2 or 3mm away from the front element because of the very clever construction of the adapter rings. Even mounted on the Nikkor Series E 35mm this filter adapter combination prodcues absolut no vignetting at every aperture.

And here are the first UV-A shots from this amazing camera....

Testphoto 01 UV (unprocessed at 1850x1238 pixel)

Testphoto 01 UV (unprocessed 100% at 1850x1238 pixel)

After talking to Bjorn Rorslet today I have to think again about what I am doing here. In his mind this is still not ultraviolett photography. Befor posting some new comments to this really crazy theme I will do some research and come back when knowing more.

I understand now that all filters leak more or less outside there passband. Because it seems that this is fact everybody can ask himself what he wants to get. If somebody is not happy with 20 or 30% ultraviolett light inside his pictures he has to shot in complete darkness. Then you have to use a SB-140 flashlight and mount minimum an BG-40 of 2mm thickness plus the Baader U-filter in front of your lens (then the UV-Nikkor 105mm should be your first choice in this case). But what can you expect to recieve from this incredible waste of material and money? I really dont know it.

And here we are again..... at the beginning!

The next question is.... if its not ultraviolet, what the hell is it? Could it be really just the rest of the IR contamination combined with a leak in violet at the beginning of the visible spectrum? I dont know anymore what to believe, but one thing is sure.... the only thing counts is still the recorded result!

The next picture shows you the a nightshoot (made from pure contaminated light only ;-)

Testphoto 02 UV nightshot (unprocessed at 1850x1238 pixel)

Testphoto 02 UV nightshot (unprocessed 100% at 1850x1238 pixel)

Update 16.09.2006

Today I borrowed some Crysanthemes from my mother and tried some more UV shots. The first one was made with the EL-Nikkor 63mm without any filter on my gitzo tripod with the selftimer.

The next picture was made ins the same way but with the Baader U-filter.

And after the postprocessing in photoshop:

So stay tuned for you dont miss my updates. Tomorrow if the weather is fine I will go and make some outdoor UV shooting again.

And if you have any questions... please post them here in my Blog, not elsewhere, thanks. You dont have to be registered, no need to login, just post your comment.

Wolfgang