Saturday, July 8, 2017

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

Today shots of a current, long blooming flower, an all yellow variant of a Treasury flower - Gazania rigens in reflected ultraviolet photography and simulated bee vision. 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 vision. Lens was a UV-Nikkor 105mm quartz fluorite lens. Light source was sunlight, background was the flower's own foliage.

[click on image to see a larger one]

Human vision:
 

Reflected UV:
 

Simulated bee vision:
 

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

This Gazania's outer petals reflect strongly UV around 365nm, and there are also highly UV reflecting marks inside around a dark UV center, all invisible to us humans, but all this gets nicely visible, also in simulated bee vision.

I have written about 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