I’ve been tasked with capturing footage of luminescent anemones and corals throughout our aquarium and I am running into some problems. I’ve had great success with photographs using excitation filters from nightsea.com and a #12 yellow filter. However, when using the same filters in a video application I’m having limited success. I had hoped being in a controlled environment would help, but apparently not.
I first thought it was temperature of the big 150w Dedolight DLH4’s, but after trying other lights including differing LED lights, I’ve still had little success. At this point I’m thinking the light sources just aren’t powerful enough. Or I haven’t completely eliminated all other light sources.
My question is has anyone here ever successfully captured fluorescence on video and hope did you do it?
I’ve been tasked with capturing footage of luminescent anemones and corals throughout our aquarium and I am running into some problems. I’ve had great success with photographs using excitation filters from nightsea.com and a #12 yellow filter. However, when using the same filters in a video application I’m having limited success. I had hoped being in a controlled environment would help, but apparently not.
I first thought it was temperature of the big 150w Dedolight DLH4’s, but after trying other lights including differing LED lights, I’ve still had little success. At this point I’m thinking the light sources just aren’t powerful enough. Or I haven’t completely eliminated all other light sources.
My question is has anyone here ever successfully captured fluorescence on video and hope did you do it?
Charles Mazel is the expert in this area. I think he's the owner of NightSea. Have you contacted him?
Besides the yellow filter, you also need blue light. If you want even more powerful lights, like what was on the BBC series, then you need to change the bulbs on regular lights that are more powerful.
Besides the yellow filter, you also need blue light. If you want even more powerful lights, like what was on the BBC series, then you need to change the bulbs on regular lights that are more powerful.
I would add to what Drew said here -- you said you have Nightsea's custom blue filters on your Dedolight DLH4's?
I haven't done video with blue excitation/yellow barrier filters, so I'm talking through my hat a bit, but just looking through a yellow barrier filter with the naked eye it doesn't seem to require a very bright light with the excitation filter to elicit the effect. Not sure why video wouldn't capture that properly --- The only issue I have seen is with regular non-filtered light diluting the effect.
John
After going back to Nightsea's site, I notice he has posted video from a Sony videocam and was apparently using a UK Light Cannon with their excitation filter. That's a pretty darn bright light, I have one of those and it's kind of like a car headlight underwater -- so maybe you are right the lights aren't bright enough.
Interesting stuff this fluorescence, eh? My wife is a Molecular Biologist and when we discovered this it really lit her up!
I notice ReefPhoto offers glowdive.com products for fluorescence photography; I wonder if Ryan has any input on doing video with their products?
The blue excitation filter is just a filter. It will filter out all light longer than a specific wavelength. However, if the spectrum of the lamp you are using doesn't include enough of the shorter wavelengths, it won't matter how bright the lamp is. i.e. it may just be bright in the longer wavelengths and be light on (pardon the pun) on the required shorter wavelengths. Note you are on the right track with the colour temperature of the lamps, but remember that artificial light sources usually don't have a continuous spectrum and may not cover the entire range of wavelengths.
The other thing to consider is the excitation and emission wavelengths of the fluorescent pigments you are trying to capture. While Charlie's filters are very good, they really only cover a narrow range. They will work very well for certain pigments - generally those that emit green or yellow but not so well on some other pigments, e.g. emission of red.
I'm also interested in doing some of this. Did you make any further discoveries, Neil (or anyone else)? I have some quite bright (4000 lumen) LEDs or an HID which I could put a filter on, but not sure how effective it would be compared to a small dedicated uv fluorescence light. I've been doing a bit of research on the spectral power distribution of different types of bulbs, and LEDs appear to usually have one strong peak (for instance some are around 455nm), whereas HID have several discrete peaks e.g. 470, 510, 540 nm etc). Anyway, I'm not sure how this will affect the suitability for coral fluorescence filming. Perhaps the HID will be better- I've heard some people have success with the UK light cannon with a filter (looking at nightsea's website)
Anyway, any further insight would be appreciated, as I'm not really in a position to experiment before the trip.
Fergus
HID is used because of the blue tinge and you can get bulbs without the quartz filter. You'll still need to the blue filter. No idea about LED. The problem is that most sealife can see UV, so they'll still run away!
As above, it all depends on the fluorescent pigments you are trying to excite. Different pigments have different excitation wavelengths and you'll need your light source to have sufficient light in the wavelength of the pigment you want to work with. Ideally, you want a light source that has an even spectrum from around 400 to 500nm to cover most pigments, although there are some that have excitation maxima even higher than 550nm.
HID is probably going to go close enough. I have used the UK Light Cannons with Charlie's filters on the GBR and they work very well.
Thanks for the pointers Drew and Andrew. Looks like I'll be trying with the HID. Will also have a go with the LEDs, and report back how both work out.
