steven, any tinkerings with this lately? Have you seen this btw? ->
http://www.deadbread.com/crumbs/23c.html
I know it might seem futile enlarging with UV, but I hope you at least give it a go when you can find the time.
Has there ever been a
remotely decent plastic lens made? Not a meniscus like what's used in Holga's, but some kind of "compound" plastic lens that offers passable image quality? How about the Kodak
Dakon lenses? Apparently they were acyrlic and check it out... not too bad! flickr
1,
2,
3... With an aperture, a means to focus, and a flat field, it might just work.
Alternatively, the fewest elements in an uncoated enlarging lens, with the largest aperture, might have to suffice.
I was at a concert last night and they had those ever-present "robotic" lighting units. They have RGB LEDS and are totally programmable to produce any color and move all around, etc, etc... anyways, at one point they shined all the lights out at the audience with full-on red and I felt a strong dose of IR heat coming from them. So take this potentially worthless anecdote for what you will, but LEDS can be quite powerful & radiant outside the visible range. I assume the UV ones would act similarly.