Multispectral shots with the Coastal 60 APO lens

[nfoto]

Spent a relaxed day away from the hustle and bustle of the D3 review, shooting with the D200 and the new 60 mm f/4 UV-Vis-APO lens from Coastal Opt.

I did employ mainly the same colour coding for my work, using UV => blue, Visible(green) => green and IR => red. This generally works quite similar to the false-colour Infrared Ektachrome in the colour rendtion that is generated, so is pleasing for landscapes. Due to thje IR component, landscapes get a much better feeling of depth to them.

Here is the playground adjacent to my house. The recent weather change has caused the snow to disappear, so the landscape looks more like late autumn than mid-winter at this time. But at least the lake is ice covered and skaters have a field day.




The next subject appears to the naked eye to be just a grey slab of granite, but literally bursts into colourful life with the multispectral technique is applied.



The immense wealth of detail makes this vivid display of "hidden" lichenous growth difficult to present on NikonGear since the file size is limited to 200 KB. So one really needs to have the original file at disposal to appreciate what has been gained in terms of new detail differentiating the various lichen and moss species.

[cyberean]

i wouldn't mind seeing the 3 discrete images
that were used to create this composite.

[Buchwald]

Have you done something with the colors or is the trees really that red? Beautiful picture. The second one....I don´t know about.

Edit: doh! I didn´t read your post proper....Now i get it!

[nfoto]

What are "true" colours anyway? What we think or what the camera captures?

The trees are mainly conifers (spruce) so they are not red, but they could well be if you shoot IR film or use digital IR techniques.

Roman: look at the colour channels and observe the coding applied. there you have the original shots (which were taken as b/w).

[cyberean]

will do.
thanks, Bjørn.

[davepaterson]

What are "true" colours anyway? What we think or what the camera captures?
The trees are mainly conifers (spruce) so they are not red, but they could well be if you shoot IR film or use digital IR techniques.

These colours do remind me of the old Kodak IR emulsion which I experimented with many years (decades) ago, and never returned to because it was so soft - I could never get a sharp image. (I guess they must have improved the film since then, if it is still available.) But I lost interest in IR as a result, and never really knew about UV (sorry!  ) but your website and these images are definitely working a conversion on me. I can see the day when I might pick up a s/h D70 and try my hand at some other parts of the spectrum.

[nfoto]

Actually I never managed to get this kind of rich colour palette out of the old Ektachrome IR (which by the way was grainy yet sharp). I tried the equivalent channel mapping to that of the Ektrachrome (Vis.green=>blue,vis.red=>green,IR=>red), but in generally favour using the follow mapping (UV=>blue, vis.green=green and IR=>red) which will usually provide warmer and more saturated colours.

[davepaterson]

Actually I never managed to get this kind of rich colour palette out of the old Ektachrome IR (which by the way was grainy yet sharp). I tried the equivalent channel mapping to that of the Ektrachrome (Vis.green=>blue,vis.red=>green,IR=>red), but in generally favour using the follow mapping (UV=>blue, vis.green=green and IR=>red) which will usually provide warmer and more saturated colours.

I bow to your superior knowledge and also plead faulty memory - I'm talking of a time in the early/mid '70s - maybe it was too grainy for me, anyway I didn't persevere with it, though I do remember it saved me on a couple of jobs where the deadlines were impossibly tight and the (Scottish) weather was just awful; some sort of result was obtained in spite of the weather, and the client was just about satisfied. (And I only meant in the most general sense that the colours reminded me.) Kodak, do I recall, also made a b/w IR emulsion - I did some experiments with that at around the same time and got some pleasing results with deep yellow and deep red filters. But I didn't stick with that, either. Maybe the pleasures of 5x4" and conventional colour film were just too great at the time!   

[nfoto]

4x5" sheet film and the appropriate view camera can be endearingly pleasant at any time. I've consumed a great number of film sheets over the years. Unfortunately they no longer will be economically feasible unless you have clients with more money than common sense, so for me it's digital instead. My secret dream is to have a digital back for large format when I retire. Then I'll have the time available that simply isn't there now.

[Expert Assembler]

Bjørn,
I like the interesting images that you have posted using the Coastal Opt 60 mm f/4 UV-Vis-APO lens. I'm curious on how you like the feel of the the lens you have, focus, f-stops, and etc... I have been reading alot lately about UV/IR photography and I have been reading and looking at mostly your photography techniques from your website. I am relatively new at the IR/UV spectrum's of photography, but I'm indeed going to learn. I have been doing some of the multispectral imaging with UV, VIS, and IR, and also doing tricolor IR images as well. Tomorrow, I am going to take my Coastal Opt 60 mm f/4 UV-Vis-APO lens with the FUJI S3 Pro IR/UV camera out (weather depending) and try to do some landscape shots and hopefully I will be able to post them up here for you to look at. I do hope we can further discuss UV/IR techniques as I will need your expertise in this field as I'm learning and trying to understand more about it. 
Thanks
Chris
COASTALOPT.COM

[nfoto]

Oh, you have got the last one of the 3 prototype samples of the 60 mm APO lens?

As concerns construction and workmanship everything is excellent. Even the clickstops of the aperture ring are smooth and well defined unliike quite a few Nikkors I could list 

The focusing action is on the stiff side, but on the other hand this allows very precise focus to be attained, and so far I haven't had issues even in Norwegian winter weather (oh well, precious little snow now, but it is *not* warm). Handling the lens otherwise is excellent (when you get used to the reversed direction of focusing) and the CPU inside enables good exposures when the lens is used for visible-light photography. In terms of sharpnes it has surpassed my expectations and the lack of focus shift over the spectral band is a much appreciated feature for practical photographic assignments. Overall I'm very pleased with this lens.

[Expert Assembler]

Bjørn,
Yes, I have one of the 3 prototypes to take out and use and gather images in UV and IR. I'm glad to hear you like the way the lens feels, I worked extremely hard on assembling these lenses to make sure they work, feel, and look perfect. Thank you for the feedback on the workmanship, quality, and overall review of this lens. I will hopefully get some images today, (if it clears up soon) and post them up from South Florida and also looking forward to seeing more of your images as well.

Chris Palermiti
COASTALOPT.COM

[annedi]

Bjørn --

(1) How do you extract the various R, G or B channels in Bibble Pro?
Is there a Bibble plug-in that is useful for this ?
I know how to do this in PS, of course, but I'm just starting with Bibble
and am not sure I have all the necessary plug-ins for my UV and Multi-spectral work.

(2) After you have "extracted" a channel, do you tone it prior to adding it to a Multi-spectral stack ?
I suppose this is somewhat a matter of personal taste,
but I'm trying to balance that against maintaining some kind of
non-manipulated "authenticity" -- so I'm just curious.

Thanks !!
******

Chris -- I'm looking forward to your images from the new Coastal 60mm.
How cool to hear from someone who has actually assembled this amazing lens !
I can't wait to get my hands on one -- I'm saving up !!

[nfoto]

I do it quite differently from what you describe.

1. Plan which spectral bands that should be used.

2. Shoot these with the appropriate filtration.

3. Process in Bibble as black-and-white (using the AndyPro plugin) to TIF format

4.Open the TIFs in Photoshop and combine the appropriate channels into a composite.

The colour coding is usually UV (blue) and IR(red) with visible as green.

[annedi]

I should have worded that question differently.....
But now I do understand making 3 different shots with different filtrations
to combine into one Multi-spectral version !!
*****

However, I still want to know how to use Bibble for channels.
NEVERMIND -- I FOUND IT FINALLY !!!! But thanks anyway.
Suppose, just for a moment, that for some reason
you wanted to look at only the Blue Channel
contained within a single UV shot
(which from the camera comprises the typical three R,G,B channels).

How would you extract that Blue Channel using Bibble

I'm asking because I do not have a Channel tool in my simple Photoshop Elements 6.

[annedi]

So let me re-phrase the other question now....

If you are coding the UV to the Blue Channel,
have you previously made that UV shot with the UV-Pass Filter AND a Blue-Pass Filter ??

Or do you simply extract the Blue Channel from the UV shot ??
Or do you take the entire UV shot and just Blue-Multiply the whole thing ??

(The idea of a combined UV-Pass Filter and Blue-Pass Filter doesn't make a lot of sense to me
because how would you decide which Blue Wavelength to use.....
Additionally, the CAMERA doesn't know you are using a Blue-Pass Filter so it might
still record on all 3 channels ??)

Looking at my UV shots, it would make sense to extract the RED channel and code THAT to the Blue
because the actual Blue Channel itself has little info.

I hope I'm making sense.

[nfoto]

No, you're enot

I make a b/w shot in UV, a b/w shot in visible light, and a b/w shot in IR. Each with the appropriate filter to make it UV, visible, or IR, respectively.

[annedi]

OK, I get it now.
You are making the usual UV shot (with appropriate lens and Baader UV-Pass Filter),
converting it to Black & White,
and finally loading the Black & White UV into the Blue Channel of the Multispectral stack.

I was thinking that perhaps you made the usual UV shot
and then extracted its Blue Channel to become the Blue Channel of the Multispectral stack.
This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me either......

Geez, half the battle is figuring out what question to ask in the first place !!
Thanks, Bjørn.

[Akira]

Happy New Year to all and thanks, Bjørn, for sharing beautiful false color landscape!

[nfoto]

Same to you, Akira. Enlighten and enjoy us with multispectral images done the Japanese way in 2008.