Mexican Zinnia - Zinnia haageana in reflected ultraviolet photography simulated bee and butterfly vision XIII

Today even more shots using that decorative flower, a Zinnia haageana - Mexican Zinnia in reflected ultraviolet photography using my "work horse" UV filter, the Baader-U and a UV/IR Cut filter for the visible light shots as well as my XBV filters for simulated bee and butterfly vision. Lens was my CERCO 94mm quartz flourite lens. Light source was Xenon flash. All shots were done at about f4.1 (fully open).

Since my readers are meanwhile used to the colors my different filters make, I leave it today to the reader to decode those. I'm using a special optical technique to achieve a gradient BG ....

[click on image to see a larger one]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Mexican Zinnia flowers have a very specific UV pattern as this last picture clearly shows (reflected UV using Baader-U filter). Their petals are very UV dark on the middle and bottom, but their petal tips are very UV bright, reaching much deeper into UV as any other flower I know (< 345nm), and some like this one here even shows different UV reflections on underside and upperside of their petals - and all this gets nicely visible in this presentation.

I have written previously about these flowers HERE.

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