Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds BBC DVD on pre-order

Amazon UK has the BBC DVD  already on pre-order, release date has been shifted to May 3rd, 2010.

This the PAL version, most likely only viewable in Europe.

Link to amazon.co.uk is here

I would assume there will be a Blue-Ray Disc also, since it has been produced in full HDTV, but I have no further info on that.

Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos

Influence of Filters on Image Sharpness

In my previous Blog entry, I had presented how an orchid will look like in simulated bee vision using that "multispectral in one shot" XBV2 filter. Strangely enough the resulting "bee vision" images looked a bit soft, so I wondered what caused that. So let's analyze the influence of filters on the sharpness of the resulting image a bit....

The first idea which might have caused softness was IR leakage, but since that special XBV2 filter stack used includes an IR suppressing filter, this was not the reason.

Since I have an alternative filter stack called XBV2a, I tested it against it - with a a big surprise: A much sharper result could be obtained.

All shot using UV-Rodagon 105mm at f8 using Xenon high Power flash and otherwise identical conditions except the filters used. 

[click on image to see a larger one]

XBV2 (left) versus XBV2a (right):

It gets very obvious, that the use of the XBV2a filter results in much improved sharpness, whereas the XBV2 filter result looks rather soft (1:1 pixel presentation).

Here now the two images full size:

XBV2 (old version):



XBV2a (new version):



Well, I'm not yet completely done finding out the reason for the softness of the XBV2 filter stack, so... 


Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos

Orchid in simulated Bee Vision

An inspiration by Bob Friedmann showing his excellent VIS and UV images on nikongear.com. I wondered how orchids would look like in simulated bee vision using my "multispectral in one shot" filter XBV2.

Here it is, simulated Bee Vision shot using XBV2 filter, high power UV flash, UV-Rodagon 5.6/105mm....and no focus shift.

[click on image to see a larger one]

VIS: 


Simulated Bee Vision using XBV2 filter: 


UV using Baader-U filter: 



Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos

UV-Rodagon Brothers

A buddy of mine and avid lens collector once mentioned the credo of all collectors: "everything comes to him, who can wait long enough...". Well, I must have waited long enough, since after some years, the brothers finally found each other..

[click on image to see a larger one]





Of course I had to test them, although the 60mm and 105mm have never been used before, MINT in makers box. Only about 25 or so have ever been made I was told, decades ago.

Measured UV-transmission (-3EV) is: 150mm: 320nm; 105mm: 315nm; 60mm: 310nm, but they do well up to 700nm (NIR)

Focus shift between UV and VIS is hardly measurable, fractions of mm only.


Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos

BBC1 announced Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds - HDTV UV video

BBC London has finally announced its new trilogy "Invisible Worlds", now called "Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds" since it will be presented by famous "Top Gear" presenter Richard Hammond on BBC1 "World of Wonder" in the UK and Discovery Channel in the USA.

The series is directed by Dan Clifton.

The DVD is already on pre-order at amazon UK here (PAL version).

Quite a while ago BBC asked me to contribute my knowhow and some of my work of the invisible to their new three part science series "Invisible Worlds". The first part of the series will be about the natural world and things we humans cannot see, but other species can, like bees, birds, butterflies, spiders, mice etc. because it may be in a spectral area not accessible to our human eyes, but to them.

The challenge was, to transfer my special still life photographic technique of the ultraviolet into the world of HDTV film, but after some weeks of intensive work, especially on lenses, filtering and lighting, I found working solutions for all that.

Using special lenses + filters I have developed, it is now also possible to show (simulated) how bees, butterflies, birds etc. may see the world in comparison to how we do see it - and all in HDTV format.

The following image is a test image, not related to or used from the BBC series but one of my test stills from that time I worked on that... (yellow flower = as we humans see it; right blueish part of the flower and butterfly = simulated tetrachromatic butterfly vision; UV = blue)

[click on image to see it larger]

If you like to see a glimpse of my work, have a look at this test HDTV video snippet on youtube directly ...or click on the following small embedded version. Notice how the butterfly patterns change and the all yellow flower petals in the visual show the typical white tipped UV pattern, invisible to us humans, but made visible as a simulation of tetrachromatic butterfly vision, where UV is shown as blue.

[this is a test shot from my own lab while preparing, not from the final series and unrelated to BBC, just to be clear...]

I would like thank Dan and his great team of "Invisible Worlds" for the opportunity to contribute to that series. It was my great pleasure to work side-a-side with such a professional and committed team!

Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos