filters – Photo rumblings and whispers

NIR-pass filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2021-02-01 2021-02-01Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

All the near-infrared (NIR) long-pass filters described in this post are absorptive glass filters and sold for special photography effects. All modern photography digital cameras have internal UVIR-cut filters. Use of these filters requires special film, special digital cameras or modified DSLR or DML cameras. Some filters can be used with unmodified digital cameras with very long exposure times. Few normal camera objectives are designed to work well in NIR. Two problems are common: 1) focus shift which needs special attention when focusing is done in visible light (e.g. not using an EVF or live-view from the camera sensor, 2)…

Lens adapter with filter drawer

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-17 2020-07-11Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

I here describe my experience with the DEO-TECH OWL EF/MFT lens adapter. The adapter is available mainly through astronomy web stores and seems to be currently distributed by Optolong. It is also available on special order at B&H photo video and possibly other large shops. Development of the adapter was initially funded through Kickstart crowd funding.

UV-cut filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-12 2020-06-17Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

As described in the post UVIR-cut filters both absorptive filters and interference filters are sold as UV-blocking filters. All modern photography digital cameras have internal UVIR-cut filters and most modern objectives transmit little UV-radiation. There are some exceptions, most if not all Olympus cameras are sensitive to long-wave UV-A radiation and a few modern objectives also transmit long UV-A radiation. Many filters sold as UV-filters do not differ from those sold as clear protection filters enough to matter. However, a few UV-filters do absorb in the whole UV-band and even into the visible violet band. Their effect might make a…

UVIR-cut filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-11 2020-06-17Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

Filters can block radiation either by reflection or absorption. Absorptive filters are usually made of glass containing various metal ions while cheaper plastic filters tend to be coloured with organic dyes. There is a third type of absorptive filter, which are rare nowadays that consist of a coloured gelatine layer in-between two glass sheets. Most high-quality absorptive filters sold for photographic use are made of solid glass and absorptive. In the case of square filters plastic is more common than for smaller circular filters. The current perfected version of the gelatine-between glass filters is Tiffen’s “core technology”. With absorptive filters…

Most neutral density filters are not neutral

Pedro J. Aphalo 2019-05-11 2019-07-18Equipment, Mehods, Photography 0

[Updated 2019-07-17] A neutral density (ND) filter is a “grey” filter, a filter that transmits equal fractions of the incident radiation at all wavelengths. A perfectly neutral filter over a broad range of wavelengths is an idealized concept, and one very difficult to implement in practice. There are different approaches to making filters approximating colour neutrality. We here compare the spectral transmittance of of ND filters of three different types available for use on camera lenses and explain why the use of some of them can introduce strong colour casts in the photographs we take with them.

Filters for UV photography

Pedro J. Aphalo 2018-06-15 2020-06-17Photography, Techniques 0

A comparison between the Baader U filter and the StraightedgeU filter, both with sun and a modified flash as light sources. Examples of flowers from two species, which display different false-colours with the two filters.

Pinholes in NIR and UVA

Pedro J. Aphalo 2018-04-28 2018-06-18Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

Using the E-M1 converted to full spectrum with the Pinhole Pro objectives is possible. Using a 58 mm NIR filter (Hoya R72) attached to the front of the 11 mm Pinhole Pro S11 worked fine, with no increase in vignetting. Using the StraightEdgeU 52 mm or Baader U-filter 2″ with a step-down ring blocked the corners of the image completely. The original 26 mm Pinhole Pro suffers a lot less from vignetting and can be used with these filters of smaller diameter than the front thread of the lens without problem.

MIDOPT filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2017-12-30 2018-06-18Equipment, Photography 0

For those interested in photography “beyond the visible”, some of the filters available from Midwest Optical Technologies Inc. under the MIDOPT brand name should be very interesting. They are distributed in European countries by Stemmer AG. Both companies are specialised in the supply of machine vision equipment. What adds additional interest is that filters are supplied in very many different sizes (from M13.25 all the way to M105, mounted and unmounted, and even with mounts suitable for installation at the back of objectives with C-mount).