UV Digital TLC Photography?

[Elrik]

I've seen nice pictures of TLC plates under both 257 and 265 nm UV here, but when I tried it just didnt work well.
Using macro and automatic settings under pure blacklight my digital camera just fuzzed out and even with the room light on it still tended to be fuzzy and sparkly.
Is there some trick to be done with the advanced settings on my digicam or are all of you guys using old style photochemical cameras?
If the latter I'll just resign to marking the spots with pencil/iodine and photographing the outline/brown spot.

This was just a test run done with the nearest fluorescent freebase alkaloid at hand, quinine, in retrospect I could have used something not extremely soluble in a ß-carboline targeted eluent :lol:

 

[blue.magic]

Have you tried manual (M) or shutter prioriy (S) setting? Then set long exposure time (few seconds perhaps) and low ISO sensitivity (say ISO 200) to avoid capturing thermal noise. Taking multiple shots and combining them also reduces noise.

Some cameras even have Bulb mode in which the camera exposes the sensor however long you want.

Of course a tripod or fixture of some kind is necessary for longer exposure times.

 

[endlessness]

I'll second that, just play around with settings and you should have good pictures.

Best results I got was with a propper Cannon DSLR and tripod, but even with mobile camera I have gotten some perfectly fine pictures.