Advice on Infrared photography

swingking

I'm experimenting with infrared photography at the moment; using a R72 IR filter on my lens.

I've seen some amazing colour IR photos on the web and Im just wondering why I'm not getting the same results myself.

here's 2 I shot today





I'm not sure if i'm post processing the photos right in photoshop although I did switch the red and blue channels as it says to.

Thanks

Fenster

If you are in Dublin, come along to the Dublin Camera Club tonight; I will be giving a talk on that very topic!

Zillah

Want to see something really freaky?



Bushy Park in Terenure, right?


How infrared manifests depends entirely on the camera sensor. Different cameras will have infrared bleed into different channels, as obviously infrared is not a colour as we know it. Mine was taken with a Nikon D70s.

What kind of white balance are you using?

swingking

Sorry Fenster, would love to go but I'm real busy with college work. Sorry man.

That's an amazing pic of bushy park. How did you get it to look that way?

I'm using a custom white balance taken from a pic shot using auto-white balance is that makes any sense.

charybdis

The photographs you're seeing on the internet may be from DSLRs that have their sensor-mounted infrared filters removed. Taking infrared-spectrum photographs with an unmodified digital camera is effectively the same thing as taking photographs using a very strong neutral density filter.

Zillah

Yours was shot from almost the same spot, right?

Anyway, mine was done with a Cokin 89B with a white balance manually set on green grass in sunlight.

Fenster

swingking wrote: »

Sorry Fenster, would love to go but I'm real busy with college work. Sorry man.

That's an amazing pic of bushy park. How did you get it to look that way?

I'm using a custom white balance taken from a pic shot using auto-white balance is that makes any sense.

All well and good, but what are you taking your reading off? Ideally it should be of grass in direct sunlight with the R72 filter on.

Zillah

charybdis wrote: »

The photographs you're seeing on the internet may be from DSLRs that have their sensor-mounted infrared filters removed. Taking infrared-spectrum photographs with an unmodified digital camera is effectively the same thing as taking photographs using a very strong neutral density filter.

It depends on how new the model is. Mine is a Nikon D70s, which is an older model, and the infrared filter on the sensor is not actually very good, so a lot of it bleeds through. Of course it requires ridiculously long exposures which is one of the reasons I don't really bother with infrared any more.

jpb1974

You'll find some info here on IR conversion -

http://www.lifepixel.com/tutorials/

Converting your photo using the colour swapping technique is never easy and you'll often find that you have a tinge of pink left in your image and getting that blue sky right can be hit and miss. B+W conversions are a lot, lot simpler.

But as others have already mentioned - you need to get that custom white balance right by photographing a patch of lush green grass in direct sunlight on a very sunny day. Watch the histogram after each exposure and adjust to the point where you have a very well balanced histogram, then set this as your custom white balance and ensure that you are using this when photographing with the IR filter on.

Being honest, I personally always found those IR screw on filters a nuisance... I have a converted Canon 30D now... ah the joy of it.

charybdis

Zillah wrote: »

It depends on how new the model is. Mine is a Nikon D70s, which is an older model, and the infrared filter on the sensor is not actually very good, so a lot of it bleeds through. Of course it requires ridiculously long exposures which is one of the reasons I don't really bother with infrared any more.

Yeah, but it's still effectively a very strong neutral density filter for infrared light and will probably produce colour shifts and whatnot as it isn't designed as a long-exposure IR-only ND filter.

swingking

Fantastic advice on photographing the green grass. Never knew that. Thanks

swingking

I must try taking some shots with my 20d might get better results on account of it being an older camera

Visuelle

This is what I personally do:

1. Only take IR shots when there is good strong sunlight.

2. Custom white balance using green grass.

3. Play around in manual taking many shots as IR can be hit or miss e.g f4/f8 for a couple of seconds, ISO 100.

Photoshop:

4. Auto Tone

5. Channel mixer - Red channel - Red = 0% Blue = 100% leave others alone
Channel mixer - Blue channel - Blue = 0% Red = 100% leave others alone

6. Hue and Sat = Red & Magenta adjust to minus to reduce pinkish coloring

7. Play around with usual stuff like brightness and contrast etc.

Hope this helps and gets you going.

One of my examples

DaireQuinlan

Actually, this has gotten me wondering again why the predominant IR aesthetic is still grainy B&W. Shooting false IR colour seems relatively easy now with digital, some nice shots there from visuelle and zillah. Back in the day it was easiest to shoot B&W because most IR film was B&W, Kodak EIR was expensive, pernickity, and hard to come by.

I guess the argument could be made that if you're shooting at a particular narrow band of wavelengths that B&W is probably the most realistic way of depicting that, but well executed false colour actually does look good.

And of course there are always the fakers . Everything can be faked in photoshop don't you know :rolleyes:

GristlyEnd

As above, I use a custom while balance from a brightly lit area of grass with the filter on, bracket 2/3 stops either side then process in photoshop. One of mine below taken with a Nikon D50 and 50mm f/1.8 lens. Have fun with it.

Fenster

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Actually, this has gotten me wondering again why the predominant IR aesthetic is still grainy B&W. Shooting false IR colour seems relatively easy now with digital, some nice shots there from visuelle and zillah. Back in the day it was easiest to shoot B&W because most IR film was B&W, Kodak EIR was expensive, pernickity, and hard to come by.

I guess the argument could be made that if you're shooting at a particular narrow band of wavelengths that B&W is probably the most realistic way of depicting that, but well executed false colour actually does look good.

And of course there are always the fakers . Everything can be faked in photoshop don't you know :rolleyes:

I simply like black and white; infrared is a good means to my own end.

jpb1974

why the predominant IR aesthetic is still grainy B&W

I can't answer your question for the masses but for me typically it's either a case that

1. B&W simply suits the scene better

or

2. False colour isn't as easy to get right

False colour can often look gimmicky too.

False Colour when it works out (I think) -



False Colour when it doesn't work out properly (see the pinky/red bits)



B+W - When it seems right

DaireQuinlan

Fenster wrote: »

I simply like black and white; infrared is a good means to my own end.

My own preference would probably be for B&W as well I think. I'm just curious as to why more people don't do colour, although jpb1974 could have hit a few nails on the head there.

On the film front at least, I'd love to get my hands on some Kodak EIR. There is (or maybe was ?) a guy re-spooling 70mm Aerochrome (similar to EIR) stock onto 120 reels for a while but it was pretty pricey, as in €18 a roll pricey.

swingking

Ok I went out to take some more IR shots.

I pre-setted the White balance as described and the shots on the back of the camera looked exactly like I wanted them to.

I import them into lightroom and what do I get?

feckin red tinted even though the white balance was custom.

Does Abobe Camera Raw not like using custom white balances or something.

Fajitas!

I've not used ACR in ages, but you should be able to change the WB to 'as shot'.

jpb1974

feckin red tinted even though the white balance was custom.

Try the RAW s/w that came with your camera e.g. DPP for Canon.

I think that newer versions of ACR and Lightroom should be able to pickup your custom wb... I heard it mentioned somewhere... but have never tried it.

swingking

thanks I'll give that a go

seanmcfoto

Lightroom and IR?

Not as good, but here's my take:

http://lightroom-blog.com/2009/05/creating-an-ir-camera-profile.html


(originally done when I had a wider content area-Ahem)

swingking

seanmcfoto wrote: »

Lightroom and IR?

Not as good, but here's my take:

http://lightroom-blog.com/2009/05/creating-an-ir-camera-profile.html


(originally done when I had a wider content area-Ahem)

Super tutorial video. Thanks for telling me. I was using Aperture to convert my IRs to Lightroom and it was a total pain. Although I'm starting to like the features in Aperture

Really appreciate it