UV Dive light

[Snoweman]

I'm not sensing any.

I seriously doubt it.

To be fair, a little more description than "yellow sheet" would have been helpful. I think "yellow filter" or "yellow colored filter in front of your mask" would have been more informative. I had no idea the light needs a little bit of help to show the colors.

 

[Schwob]

Love the question. I had intended experimenting with various filters and various lights and hope to stumble on something new. Having a bare sensor (full spectrum) was to let me pop on a filter (or two) and hit the critters with everything from IR to UV and see what showed up. Dabbled in Astrophotography in the past a little too so was borrowing some of the notch filter ideas.

Particularly interested in the cave critters, some glow and it makes them easier to spot.

Had been working with a couple Chinese light venders who were willing to drop in any LED chip I wanted into can light heads. After the flood I haven't converted another camera and I'm putting funds into the therapeutic dive program these days. Will pick up the hobby project again some day.

P. S. I assume you have an awesome job!

Quite iteresting!

The job's pretty good, but maybe not as awsome as you imagine. It involves designing equipment that uses various sensors of various kinds, some grown on home turf... and sometimes you just want to i.e look at where the light is or is not going... and a full spectrum camera and a few filters can at times help settle arguments or wild theories about what's going on... But it's a miniscule side aspect of the job at best... Anyway, how awesome can a job possibly be while it keeps you from, as you seem to call it "the therapeutic diving program"...

 

[lionfish-eater]

I bought a set of filters that go over regular dive lights and the yellow filter that goes over your dive mask from Dr.Mazel about ten years ago. I also had a filter made for my video rig. It is interesting to use and easy to show others the effect by letting them use the mask filter.

His filters have been specifically designed to maximize the effect.

I will bring them on my next visit.

About Us - NIGHTSEA

 

[lionfish-eater]

NIGHTSEA - Practical Solutions for Fluorescence

 

[mstevens]

To be fair, a little more description than "yellow sheet" would have been helpful.

Yeah, fair enough. I think those who have dived using this kind of lights and filters likely knew right away to what that referred, but I can see how it could be obscure to someone who hasn't.

With the blue lights, stuff looks mostly blue, as you would expect when you point a blue light at stuff. The blue light is an excitation frequency that's absorbed and that stimulates light output at different frequencies (that's fluorescence) by various materials such as proteins in organisms. Things that fluoresce at that excitation wavelength are fluorescing, but that's difficult to see through all the blue bouncing back to you from everything that isn't absorbing it and emitting a different wavelength. Using a filter to remove light of the excitation wavelength (all that blue) but not the fluorescence wavelengths makes it much easier to see the fluorescence. This effect can be achieved with an excitation filter over a sufficiently bright light (that emits the necessary wavelength) combined with a barrier filter over your eyes.

There are actually now UV dive lights available that excite fluorescence at colors we can see but the light from which isn't directly perceptible to humans. Those don't need the yellow filters (at least for humans - I don't know about various camera sensors) because the non-fluorescing stuff doesn't appear lit up. There's still a lot of light bouncing back to you, it's just that because you don't see UV you can't see that light. This requires a UV emitter and can't be achieved with filters over a regular light.

Different proteins fluoresce in response to different wavelengths, so it's not necessarily the case that UV wavelengths invisible to humans are better than blue excitation lights that require barrier filters. I'm not an expert and don't really know the limitations of each in terms of sport diving. Since I'm not doing research, and because I've lost a couple of the yellow mask filters, I'm especially intrigued by the idea of just being able to wave a light at stuff and see it fluoresce. I do notice that NIGHTSEA has lights that have white output in addition to blue so you can do the fluorescence thing and still be able to see other stuff and potentially carry only one main light. That's pretty cool, too.

 

[rmssetc]

. I do notice that NIGHTSEA has lights that have white output in addition to blue so you can do the fluorescence thing and still be able to see other stuff and potentially carry only one main light. That's pretty cool, too.

I just (literally, delivered today) got one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Flashlight-Blacklight-Fire-Ultraviolet/dp/B0721MTCN9

2x UV LED + 4x white LED. Pretty compact, cheap enough that I won't cry if I lose it.

Looking forward to trying in in CZM in a month.

Oh, one warning about any UV light ..don't test it by pointing at your couch (or kitchen, bathroom, etc). No matter how clean you thought it was before...eeuwh!

 

[Snoweman]

I'm a little surprised a red filter isn't more effective. Obviously, I am not a lighting/optics engineer, but the red filter on my GoPro seems to help mitigate the heavy "blue" influences at depth.

 

[mstevens]

I just (literally, delivered today) got one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Flashlight-Blacklight-Fire-Ultraviolet/dp/B0721MTCN9

2x UV LED + 4x white LED. Pretty compact, cheap enough that I won't cry if I lose it.

"make impossible to be possible"!

I'll be interested in your experience with it, including how you like that handle. It seems odd to me.

 

[rmssetc]

"make impossible to be possible"!

I'll be interested in your experience with it, including how you like that handle. It seems odd to me.

Urgh. I posted the wrong link.

I purchased this: https://www.amazon.com/KC-Fire-Unde...TF8&qid=1542924597&sr=8-2&keywords=kc+fire+uv

No handle, much smaller. Threaded for optional (included) ball mount.

 

[mstevens]

Urgh. I posted the wrong link.

I purchased this: https://www.amazon.com/KC-Fire-Unde...TF8&qid=1542924597&sr=8-2&keywords=kc+fire+uv

No handle, much smaller. Threaded for optional (included) ball mount.

Oooooooh. Now, THAT I want. Thanks for the link.