Make: Online : UV photography on the cheap

There's an easy way to make a UV pass filter for your camera. It just takes a $5 incandescent black light, a large bottle cap and some duct tape.

For years I've wanted to mess around with UV photography. Unfortunately, all the websites on DIY UV seem to assume an infinite amount of money and access to specialized equipment on my part. There are two things that I don't like, when someone tells me I HAVE to spend a lot of money (quartz lenses starting at $3000) or that i need specialized equipment (Wratten 18A filters, not cheap either).
So I set out to do it my way, and here's my $5 solution to UV wavelength photography.

It's not completely void of visual artifacts, especially at the edges of the photo, but that's what the crop tool is for. As long as you're creative, which you are, you can make it work for you and get really nice results. Save the 3000 bucks for that trip to Europe... you know, where you can exchange it for about 2000 Euro.

Photography in the Ultraviolet spectrum - Link

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: Roee on January 30, 2008 at 10:28 PM

Where is the link? It seems to be missing.

Reply to this comment

Posted by: Robert on January 30, 2008 at 10:59 PM

http://www.instructables.com/id/Photography-in-the-Ultraviolet-spectrum/

Posted by: Jason Striegel on January 30, 2008 at 11:23 PM

Doh!

Fixed it. Thanks for the catch, Roee.

Posted by: John Egan on January 31, 2008 at 9:39 AM

When I was considerably younger (ahem!) I was into photography and remember buying ultraviolet film... I just did a quick Google and was directed to Amazon and half a dozen other Google sites.. I tried a few abut found nothing there (So much for Goggle directing you to their high paying sites) but I'm sure it is still available..

Also, I found a piece of plastic that gave me exactly the same effect when placed over the lens (with tape) ... I'm not sure where I got it... It was thin and flexible and might have been an exposed negative??? Don't think so... You might want to try Edmunds Scientific - They might have a cheap plastic filter that does the same thing as the $265 filters I found on the above mentioned Webpages.... I was an impoverished student and came across the plastic cheap..

Anyway ... Had some very interesting results .. Flowers, girl in a graveyard ..

Bye! jegan