Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) filters block ultraviolet radiation, but let visible light through. Because photographic film and digital sensors are sensitive to ultraviolet (which is abundant in skylight) but the human eye is not, such light would, if not filtered out, make photographs look different from the scene visible to people, for example making images of distant mountains appear unnaturally hazy. An ultraviolet-blocking filter renders images closer to the visual appearance of the scene.
As with infrared filters there is a potential ambiguity between UV-blocking and UV-passing filters; the latter are much less common, and more usually known explicitly as UV pass filters and UV bandpass filters.
Read more about this topic: Filter (optics)
Famous quotes containing the word ultraviolet:
“Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“As if the musicians did not so much play the little phrase as execute the rites required by it to appear, and they proceeded to the necessary incantations to obtain and prolong for a few instants the miracle of its evocation, Swann, who could no more see the phrase than if it belonged to an ultraviolet world ... Swann felt it as a presence, as a protective goddess and a confidante to his love, who to arrive to him ... had clothed the disguise of this sonorous appearance.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)