Been playing with the camera!

[LD]

I love fluorescence in gems and am fascinated by it. Crasru''s photos of her Ruby made me realise that I hadn''t ever taken photos of the fluor on mine ........... that led to a few others! Please add your fluor photos to this thread if you want.

All photos are taken in my hallway, using the carpet on the stairs as a background (it was the darkest room in the house this morning)! The daylight photos are in the same position but with the UV penlight turned off and the camera set to auto white balance.

Okay, first up - 6.5ct marquise Ruby:

 

[LD]

Same ring but on the hand:

 

[LD]

Colombian Emerald - I love that the fluor looks pink!

 

[LD]

Alexandrite and Emerald. The fluor on the Alex is incredibly strong.

 

[LD]

This is an irradiated red/pink diamond. I have no idea what colour fluor this is as it appears to be multi-coloured! As you can see, some of the white diamonds fluoresce as well.

 

[LD]

Last one. This is interesting because you can see that the Ruby (marquise shape) has strong fluorescence but the Rubellite (pear shape) has no fluor whatsoever!

 

[T L]

Hi LD,
Great photos. My alexandrite also has strong red fluor, but it shows no red in sunlight, and I don''t kinow why that is when my other gems with strong red fluor show an obvious kick of red in the sun. Thanks for the photos, they were great!!

 

[RockHugger]

Very pretty! I love flour too. When I got my UV penlight in the mail a while ago I was checking everything!!

I like the emeralds. Its amazing the colors that pop out!

 

[LD]

Apologies TL my Alex doesn''t show any red in sunlight either. I should have mentioned that. It is totally impossible for me (and every single camera I''ve ever owned) to pick up the daylight green of Alex. The colour in the photo above is the colour you actually see in incandescent lighting and photos. In daylight I see a gorgeous forest green. So I was looking through the camera lens, can see red/purple, move the camera lens away and look with my eyes and see forest green!

 

[LD]

Date: 3/21/2010 5:04:47 PM
Author: RockHugger
Very pretty! I love flour too. When I got my UV penlight in the mail a while ago I was checking everything!!

I like the emeralds. Its amazing the colors that pop out!

Totally agree! It''s great fun!

 

[Arkteia]

Fun! I am waiting for my pen to arrive...
It is interesting that I can not capture the green of my Alex either. The camera cooperated so poorly that I finally thought I became delusional and had to ask my 6 year old what was the color of the stone. He said, green. Now if a child sees green it must be green, and the camera sees dark blue-green...what not. The red/purple it sees very well, I was even able to capture red flashes in the purple. No green! What is it?

 

[Indylady]

Wow! Thanks for the shots LD. I especially love the way your alex. flours, and your ruby. The irradiated diamond is really interesting; do you know if irradiation can affect/cause/change fluorescence?

 

[brandy_z28]

You have such stunning pieces LD!

Thanks for sharing that with us.

 

[Kismet]

Date: 3/21/2010 4:55:29 PM
Author: tourmaline_lover
Hi LD,

Great photos. My alexandrite also has strong red fluor, but it shows no red in sunlight, and I don''t kinow why that is when my other gems with strong red fluor show an obvious kick of red in the sun. Thanks for the photos, they were great!!

My little alex cat''s eye does the same thing.

LD, those are awesome pics. I especially love the ruby fluorescence pic.

 

[Catmom]

Oh this is such a fun thread!! I thought I''d play but my photos are no where near as good as yours. Mine are with a blacklight taken in our closet. Lights out of course.

Here is a before of my color change sapphire..........

 

[Catmom]

And here it is bright red under the blacklight......

 

[Catmom]

I thought I would do my new sapphire ring and imagine my surprise when several of the halo diamonds fluoresced yellow!

 

[LD]

Michelle - I am always in awe of your jewellery and adore your fluor photos. I''d have put money on the sapphire having it! It''s interesting that your yellow diamond hasn''t isn''t it? Were you expecting that to have it and the sapphire not?

Kismet - I suspect that most colour changing stones have fluor just because of the way they react to light anyway. Have you ever tried to capture your Alex in fluor mode? Please try to won''t you and add it to this thread - as you can tell I''m a fluor junkie

Brandy - You sweetie. Thank you.

Indy - I''m pretty sure irradiation doesn''t affect fluor. I think if a diamond is going to fluor (or any gemstone for that matter) then treatment doesn''t affect it. I''ve got both natural and irradiated diamonds and some fluor, some don''t. Obviously that''s not a scientific experiment and may of course be way off base but unfortunately I don''t have a bigger sample to work with!

Crasru - it''s not your camera. I can''t remember where I read this but the reason that you can''t photograph the daylight green of an Alex is the way that it reacts to certain lights and its chemical composition. I''ll try to find the explanation and post it up. However, be assured that the majority of vendors have to rely on photoshopping to "show" customers what colour they''ll see in daylight. Even if a vendor manages to capture the green it still never quite looks right (although I believe that if you have a certain bulb, lens, stand on one leg, cross your eyes and wish on the tooth fairy it might work).

 

[Arkteia]

Well, I tilted the stone till the light would go through the thickest part and I saw plenty of beautiful green...the camera did not! My gemologist was able to do it but he has a special camera with different types of lighting. Of interest, both Gubelin and GIA certs were able to capture green although it did not look too impressive (I am not surprised, what with the window this stone has). However, their red looked like very dirty purple and IRL it is beautiful. I bought it for the purple. When I tried to "close" the window with a piece of gold it brought out more green but the red became worse and I thought, forget the green, since I spend most of my time indoors anyhow. The light in my son's swimming pool, however, brings out a lot of green - it is sort of "daylight" (fluorescent?) light, and the lamps are mounted very high. Strange, but whatever. Maybe I should go to Namibia or Brazil and see how it looks there...it probably will be greener.

Look at TL's emeralds - beautiful stones, but they look blue on my monitor! I just think some cameras are "green-blind". Reds and oranges come out great, however.

As to photoshopping - all you need to do is to use different filters. In photos of best alexes the "red" and "green" backgrounds look totally different - a sure sign that different filters were used.

 

[Arkteia]

But here I am talking about the alex when your photographs are so much fun!

 

[LD]

Date: 3/22/2010 4:56:05 PM
Author: crasru
Well, I tilted the stone till the light would go through the thickest part and I saw plenty of beautiful green...the camera did not! My gemologist was able to do it but he has a special camera with different types of lighting. Of interest, both Gubelin and GIA certs were able to capture green although it did not look too impressive (I am not surprised, what with the window this stone has). However, their red looked like very dirty purple and IRL it is beautiful. I bought it for the purple. When I tried to ''close'' the window with a piece of gold it brought out more green but the red became worse and I thought, forget the green, since I spend most of my time indoors anyhow. The light in my son''s swimming pool, however, brings out a lot of green - it is sort of ''daylight'' (fluorescent?) light, and the lamps are mounted very high. Strange, but whatever. Maybe I should go to Namibia or Brazil and see how it looks there...probably will be greener.

Look at TL''s emeralds - beautiful stones, but they look blue on my monitor! I just think some cameras are ''green-blind''. Reds and oranges come out great, however.

No it''s still not your monitor or camera! TL will tell you that she can''t capture the green of her Emeralds either and they look blue on my monitor too. Strangely, I can pick up the green of an Emerald almost perfectly with my camera but Alexandrites evade me!

It IS possible to photograph Alexandrites, if you know how, BUT I''ve yet to see photographs of an Alex in both colour ways that accurately reflect what you see with your eyes. The only time I''ve seen that is when the photo has been manipulated in some way.

This may be the answer (taken from Alexandrite, Tsarstone Collectors Guide):

Alexandrite is a trichroic gemstone which absorbs and reflects light differently in each of its three optical directions. Spectroscopic analysis reveals a different absorption spectrum for each of the three optical directions. The differences in absorptions cause different colors to be seen when viewed from different directions in relation to the crystal structure. However, it is not the trichroism that is responsible for the remarkable color change. The color change phenomena is a result of the presence of chromium +3 ions and the way they absorb and reflect light. In rubies the chromium absorption band is around 550 nanometers and in emeralds, the band is around 600nm. In alexandrite, where the band is at 580nm and right between ruby red and green emerald, the stone is balanced between them.

Daylight contains high proportions of blue and green light and incandescent lighting contains a higher balance of red light. When the light is balanced (daylight), the stone is green but when the light source is reddish (incandescent), the stone appears red.

Human vision is more sensitive to green light. Alexandrite reflects both green and red light. In daylight, a greater proportion of green light is reflected so we see green. Conversely, under incandescent light more red light is reflected so we see red.

 

[PumpkinPie]

wow - what neat photos _ I love the first ones of the ruby!

 

[Indylady]

Date: 3/22/2010 4:42:52 PM
Author: LovingDiamonds
Michelle - I am always in awe of your jewellery and adore your fluor photos. I''d have put money on the sapphire having it! It''s interesting that your yellow diamond hasn''t isn''t it? Were you expecting that to have it and the sapphire not?


Kismet - I suspect that most colour changing stones have fluor just because of the way they react to light anyway. Have you ever tried to capture your Alex in fluor mode? Please try to won''t you and add it to this thread - as you can tell I''m a fluor junkie

Brandy - You sweetie. Thank you.


Indy - I''m pretty sure irradiation doesn''t affect fluor. I think if a diamond is going to fluor (or any gemstone for that matter) then treatment doesn''t affect it. I''ve got both natural and irradiated diamonds and some fluor, some don''t. Obviously that''s not a scientific experiment and may of course be way off base but unfortunately I don''t have a bigger sample to work with!

Crasru - it''s not your camera. I can''t remember where I read this but the reason that you can''t photograph the daylight green of an Alex is the way that it reacts to certain lights and its chemical composition. I''ll try to find the explanation and post it up. However, be assured that the majority of vendors have to rely on photoshopping to ''show'' customers what colour they''ll see in daylight. Even if a vendor manages to capture the green it still never quite looks right (although I believe that if you have a certain bulb, lens, stand on one leg, cross your eyes and wish on the tooth fairy it might work).

Teehehehe, maybe we should all acquire more samples of diamonds and gems to improve our understanding of fluorescence

.

 

[chrono]

OMG, I love all these pictures. We should have our own fluorescent thread!

 

[Catmom]

Date: 3/22/2010 4:42:52 PM
Author: LovingDiamonds
Michelle - I am always in awe of your jewellery and adore your fluor photos. I''d have put money on the sapphire having it! It''s interesting that your yellow diamond hasn''t isn''t it? Were you expecting that to have it and the sapphire not?

Thanks LD, you have some stunning pieces yourself! I knew that the sapphire would have it because it''s a color change but i didn''t think that the yellow diamond would. I like how some of the mele do though. What surprised me was the yellow fluorescence in the halo stones on my new sapphire ring. I had never seen that before.

 

[Kismet]

Date: 3/22/2010 4:42:52 PM
Author: LovingDiamonds
Kismet - I suspect that most colour changing stones have fluor just because of the way they react to light anyway. Have you ever tried to capture your Alex in fluor mode? Please try to won''t you and add it to this thread - as you can tell I''m a fluor junkie

I tried again last night but my photos still are coming out all purple. *fails at fluorescent photography*

 

[Catmom]

I had some more fun this morning with my pink sapphire pendant. [LD thanks so much for starting this thread. It is so much fun!] I was pretty sure the sapphire would fuoresce but I was surprised again at the yellow diamonds. Since my ER stone didn''t fluoresce I wasn''t expecting the yellow diamonds here to but they did! Here''s before...........

 

[Catmom]

And here''s under the blacklight.......

 

[xlent]

I don''t know if it is "flouresce but I am turning a slight shade of green..pure envy ..Beautiful Photos!

 

[LD]

Date: 3/23/2010 9:53:02 AM
Author: Catmom
And here''s under the blacklight.......

WOW! What a fabulous photo! The fluor is so obvious isn''t it! Amazing, thank you so much for sharing.