Saturday, June 23, 2012

Coryphanta vivipara: human vision vs simulated bee vison; reflected UV ultraviolet photography

My wife's cute little cactus just today opened up two if its four flowers. I wanted to show this one in its multispectral representation today. So I took some shots in normal human vision VIS, in UV using the Baader-U, Jupiter-U and the new Saturn-U (300-350nm) filter, as well as in simulated bee vision using my XBV2, XBV3 and the new, stricter XBV5 filters respectively.

[click on image to see a larger one]

Visual shot:


Simulated bee vison using XBV3 filter:


Simulated bee vison using XBV2 filter:


Simulated bee vison using XBV5 filter:


UV using Baader-U filter:


UV using Jupiter-U filter:


UV using Saturn-U (300-350nm) filter:


IR (basically) as it was shot using only a ND filter:


And here a polyptych of a few of those images:


Interesting to note, that the shorter waveband the filters are, the clearer they differentiate the UV reflective petals inside from the much lower reflective petal outsides.

I'm still working on my bee vision (BV) filters; BV5 is a very strict one that cuts all longer than short wave green. More about these special new filters here later in a seperate entry.


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