Ginkgo leaf fluorescence

This is an image of the top side of the Ginkgo leaf (shown in: www.flickr.com/photos/bob_81667/6242849127/ ) fluorescing when illuminated by defocussed 404nm diode laser light. The image is captured with a Sony DSC-F717 camera in two sets of exposures, the first in nomal mode with a yellow filter (to remove the violet laser light) and the second in 'night-shot' mode with an RG715 filter. This second set isolates the longer wavelength chlorophyll flourescence band around 740nm. (see: www.flickr.com/photos/bob_81667/6242814279/ ). Each set of multiple images, taken with the laser moved to different positions in order to smear the diffraction patterns, was median stacked in Photoshop.

The final colour image was constructed by mapping the green and red channels of the first image to the blue and green channels of the output, then the infrared image to the red output channel, i.e., G, R, IR -> B, G, R.

The end result is that the red and green represents the two chlorophyll fluorescence bands (RF) at 740 and 680nm while the blue represents the so-called green fluorescence (GF) around 530nm. The GF is particularly strong in the yellowing, autumnal ginkgo leaves.

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