"Wayne J. Cosshall" writes:

A big part of the problem is the lens. A normal glass lens won't
let much UV through and special UV lenses cost like hell - and I'll
be glad to be proven wrong about this.
True about UV. Thankfully that doesn't apply to the infrared end of
the spectrum where the lenses mostly work fine.

UV is of special interest to me because my girlfriend is doing
research on how birds use their UV vision for finding food. Being able
to take UV photographs of her test setups might be enlightening or at
least fun.