The King's Oak and other UV impressions

[nfoto]

I'm fortunate to live on the outskirts of Oslo, capital of Norway, where rural nature and deep forests are immediately accessible almost everywhere.

 

Yesterday I had a break from the daily chores to visit Maridalen, the nearest valley only a few km away, and aiming for some of the (to me) familiar sights there. I started shooting UV dandelions sprouting from mediaeval ruins of the Margaretha church (approx. 1200 AD), the structure that gave the district its name far back in time.

 

Thereafter, I continued to the landmark Kongeeika (The King's Oak). This is a large four-stemmed Summer Oak, which is set in an open rural landscape so can be seen far away, and now protected by law. Oaks - of any size - are rare in this region. Nobody to my knowledge has carried out a dendrochronologic study, but as these oaks were mentioned in early 16th century writings as being 'huge', it surely must go back nearly a thousand years and perhaps even more. Folklore has it that one of the Viking kings held court underneath its spreading boughs, hence the name.

 

I have shot Kongeeika numerous times and it's always an appealing challenge to come up with fresh footage of such a frequently visited subject. This time I used my Nikon D3200 (modified with built-in Baader U 2" filter courtesy Vivek Iyer) and my Nikkor 18 mm f/4 AI. The 18 mm doesn't cut deep into UV, but nonetheless its UV transmission suffices to give a nice UV character to the captures.

 

This was in the afternoon with late sunlight raking across the landscape and making the gnarled bark appear even more wrinkled and old. I did the first take with the camera hand-held at 10 seconds exposures. Not a winner in terms of sharpness, but not bad either.

 

 

However, as the little red car was nearby, so was my tripod, thus the next frame using tripod support shows what the 18 mm is capable of in UV.

 

 

I have deliberately processed this to appear similar in tonality and colours to the first digital UV frames shot 15 years ago with my Nikon D1 and the UV-Nikkor. This approach removes some of the finer details of course, but with the 24 MPix frame of the D3200 at your disposition, one can allow this. Although image quality has increased immensely over the time span since the D1, I'm not equally sure about the impressions of UV being that much better. While our favoured 'standard false colour' palette is useful for comparative purposes, the outcome sometimes lacks visual impact. Landscape motifs exemplify this.

 

A few minutes further driving brought me to the first of many wetlands in the area, and I hoped the Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris; Ranunculaceae) would be in bloom. It surely was, although the mass development I had hoped for wasn't present this season. Thus I had to make do with the scene depicted below. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the coppice of wetland willows (Salix cinerea in this case) so light levels at water surface was getting very low. I put the D3200 plus the 18 mm atop my Sachtler tripod, which doesn't mind being submersed at all, and shot the flowers at f/16 30 secs ISO 200.

 

 

Despite gusts of wind buffeting them, the flowers came out surprising sharp. No flash used.

[colinbm]

The 'Kings Oak' shots show a beautiful range of colours in the UV range that you have captured Bjorn.

I like the high contrast of colour in the flower shot too, considering the low level of light.

Col

[nfoto]

Thanks, Colin. Yes, using a sturdy tripod sometimes offers unprecedented advantages. The "trick" of using very long exposures for flowers when occasional wind is an issue is old hat and I often used this with my view cameras in the dark ages of film. However, you need to have *slow enough* shutter speeds and a wind that comes in gusts, not blowing hard all the time. For the Marsh Marigold picture I was in a sheltered wetland with the willows acting as wind breakers, but the first attempt using 1-2 sec exposures all came out blurry. Only when I lowered ISO and extended exposures beyond 20 secs did the flowers appear sharp.

 

For the Oak picture stopping down wasn't required as such, but with an 18 mm lens, it is tempting to get fore- and background in good focus concurrently. Processing to make the images look like UV captures with the D1 did the rest.

[OlDoinyo]

In the second image, the foreground mirror with its layered, multiple-order reflections is an interesting touch.

[Andrea B.]

It is good to escape the boundaries of the UV white balanced look and show how interesting UV photographic art can be. And I always enjoy your juxtaposition of the man-made and natural. A theme I have photographed many times myself.

 

30 seconds is a loooong exposure in UV for those Caltha.

 

I miss Norway!!!

[nfoto]

Server migration and related issues caused me some headaches of late, but now that return to normalcy has been secured I take the opportunity to elaborate my first post further.

 

Here are the dandelions in UV as referred to earlier. The remnants of the ancient Margareta church are acting as a backdrop. I shot these flowers with my D3200 and the 18 mm f/4 Nikkor at f/7.1 and 2 sec. ISO 200, overcast sky. Persistent windy conditions took away much of the sharpness of the flower heads (capitula), but the familiar UV signature of the dandelion's mop is clearly present. I had no UV flash with me to make the flowers stand out better, and the light was on the bright side to get a really long exposure like I got with the Marsh Marigolds later that day. Since the gusts didn't calm down for long, even a long exposure might not have sufficed anyway to improve sharpenss.

 

 

Sometimes it can be rewarding to shoot a scene concurrently in UV and IR. Thus, here is the King's Oak scene in an IR disguise, captured with the AFS 18-70 mm f/3.5-4.5 Nikkor G ED on my modified Nikon D5300. Again, a focal setting of 18 mm was employed, thus the UV/IR scenes can be directly compared. The photographer in the IR frame is Sten Rasmussen by the way (a friend from the old 'nikongear' community).

 

 

Although there are similarities, the visual impact of UV and IR, respectively, is stunningly different. An aspect to keep in mind when you venture beyond the visible range.

[Andrea B.]

You could make an interesting UV/IR diptych.