Ultra Violet Light for Diving?

[meigs3]

Does anyone know where I can get a UV light for diving? Some years back there was a National Geographic article with UV light photos of sponges and coral which was interesting.

 

[SmileMon]

I think (but I'm not sure!) that most HID lights emit also UV light, so what you'll need is a black filter.

I've seen this company sell those filters for cameras, but I have no clue if it will work on HID light.

http://www.maxmax.com/aUVFilterOrder.asp

I guess this is a start, if you find something else, please update us.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

with UV light, you should also be able to see if wetsuits have been recently peed in. You might could even snap pics of your dive buddy taking a leak at 100 fsw.....I can image the slideshow later


"oh, here's cool one of this sponge with UV light. Hey, this one was good too, again with UV light. It made the sponges glow really cool and made the coral have wierd tints. yeah, here's a good example of the coral, see how it glows? Oh, here's one of my dive bu...um, must have forgotton to take the UV filter off my strobe heh heh...yeah, he was drinking alot of water on the boat...heh heh.."

 

[PerroneFord]

LOL! That's awful! But very funny....

 

[mattroz]

i think you`d have to put a uv filter on the camera lense, not on the strobe, or hid. because shining a HID with uv filter on it doesn't cancel out the other visible ambiant light

 

[Doc]

Does anyone know where I can get a UV light for diving? Some years back there was a National Geographic article with UV light photos of sponges and coral which was interesting.

There are expensive ways, cheap ways and smart ways.

The expensive is about $700

The cheap way is to but an Ikelite 4cFL (4 c cells with two lights, one of which is flourescent). Then buy the 6 volt UV tube at Walmart (Haloween is a great time to get one) and you'll have a 4 watt (not very bright) Blacklight Illuminator.

The smart way?

www.inovalight.com and search for the X5 UV model. http://www.inovalight.com/site.html?X5-ov $60 ?

Stick this inside a UK4c housing.

More than adequate for dazzling a dive class. It throws a 6' circle at about 8' out. You'll need about 6 of them iun an array to get a decent u/w digital image.

Most corals flouresce green, noticable the lettuce leaf coral. Some have delicate red hues and some faint blues.

Parts of the Banded Coral Shrimp glow- but this is for the same reason that Polar Bears are bright green under UV Black Light.

The Mensa crowd can tell us why!

 

[SmileMon]

mattroz, the returning light is in the visible range, so a UV filter on the camera won't give him the desired effect. IMHO night diving, and a covered HID will, also, a fine adjustment of aparture and shutter speed, might produce better results than using auto.

 

[Matt S.]

Blue light will also cause some interesting contrast, particularly with red/orange critters. I'm not a certified diver yet, but some corals in my reef aquarium look very interesting under blue as well as UV light.

I might be possible to modify a product like the MiniWave LED light, if there are equivalent UV LEDs available.

 

[Footslogger]

Don't UV light bulbs heat up quite a bit ?? They use them in aquariums to kill pathogens/parasites and often their use requires a "chiller" to offset the heat they generate.

'Slogger

 

[divad]

with UV light, you should also be able to see if wetsuits have been recently peed in. You might could even snap pics of your dive buddy taking a leak at 100 fsw.....I can image the slideshow later


"oh, here's cool one of this sponge with UV light. Hey, this one was good too, again with UV light. It made the sponges glow really cool and made the coral have wierd tints. yeah, here's a good example of the coral, see how it glows? Oh, here's one of my dive bu...um, must have forgotton to take the UV filter off my strobe heh heh...yeah, he was drinking alot of water on the boat...heh heh.."

Now is the time when we dance.