Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Treasury flower - Gazania rigens in reflected ultraviolet photography and simulated butterfly and new bee vision

Today in 2020 more outdoor shots of that long blooming yelow Gazania flower, the Treasury flower - Gazania rigens shot in reflected ultraviolet photography, simulated bee and butterfly vision. But now also about a new way of showing the reflected UV in a different, new color scheme. All shots were done at f8 in reflected ultraviolet photography using my "work horse" UV filter, the Baader-U filter, as well as my XBV filters for simulated bee and butterfly vision. Lens was a UV-Nikkor 105mm quartz fluorite lens. Light source was sunlight.

[click on image to see a larger one]

Human vision:
 

Reflected UV:
 

Simulated butterfly vision:
 

Simulated bee vision (new version):
 

Quadriptych of human vision, UV, simulated butterfly and new bee vision (left to right, top to bottom):
 

This Gazania's outer petals strongly reflect UV around 365nm, whereas the inner petal parts are quite darker, hence forming UV nectar guides for UV seeing insects. There are also some highly UV reflecting marks inside around a dark UV center, all invisible to us humans, but clearly visible to bees and butterflies, and all this gets nicely visible here, also in simulated butterfly and the new bee vision.

I have written about this Gazania previously 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