Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Ok so a few people have been asking me about my infrared pictures.. So I thought I would share on how its done/ whatever I know about it which isn't much ....people mistaken thermal photography (photos of heat waves) you seem them on ghost shows and stuff.... So to start out infrared are light waves that the human eye cannot see. The human eye can see a very small portion of the visible spectrum.. The humans eye can only see 300 nm - 700 nm (nanometers) of the light spectrum Infrared (actually Near infrared) which I photograph is anywhere from 700nm - 1000nm.....

Most digital cameras have something on there sensor called a hot mirror... This is put there to block any infrared light from hitting your sensor .. some cameras its stronger then others. A way to test if your camera would be good for infrared is take your remote control for your tv and point it at your camera and take a picture if you can see the infrared light then your camera can take infrared pictures (nikon d70 works great)... but how do you take pictures of light you don't see

Well theres 2 ways ... If you have and older digital slr you don't use you can convert it to infrared.. It can be costly and once you convert it your stuck with only being able to take infrared pictures with it .... The upside to this is you can use it like a normal camera .. view your image through the viewfinder .. focus.. and take pictures with normal shutterspeeds ... converting your camera is a better way if you have the money and the available camera body..

The other option which is what I opted for, for the time being is buying an infrared filter ... I myself bought the Hoya r72 which seems to be the most popular from what I've researched. It costed me around 89 dollars on amazon (for a 67mm) and came within 4 days... the problem now with usinga filter is it can be tedious to take pictures with .. The filter is virtually black due to it blocking any visible light.. so once its on your lens you can't see anything through it .. This means you compose the picture.. focus.. and then attach then filter and take your picture..


Problems ... So I was all excited and took my infrared filter out on an overcast day to take some pictures ... boy was I dissapointed lol .. The pictures turned out like crap I was so bummed .... They were dark not very noisy and just looked horrible .. So I went home and did some research ... The nice thing about infrared is those times in the middle of the day when the light is too harsh for regular photography is when infrared performs its best. Infrared photography is the how infrared light reflects off objects .. Green foliage (tree leaves/plants) turn a bright white(due to photosynthesis) while skys and water turn black and dark ... The oppertunties to be creative are endless.

Tips for infrared

- Use your coldest white balance setting in order to get the best out of your pictures

- Shoot raw if possible

- Shoot on really sunny days for best effects

- Shooting custom white balances give you great effects also ( try custom white balancing off a sunny part of grass)


there you have it a crash course on infrared ... I'm no university student so I apologize for the horrible grammer and spelling


- Tyler

My Pictures of Ir

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2616/3892213870_310d137d75.jpg[/img

This is great, thank you for sharing. Have you run into any problems with focus in infrared? I read somewhere that there is a difference in distances (specifically for infinity if I remember correctly)? Oh, and how do you meter (I assume manual mode), but meter for correct exposure without the filter on, right?

I Havent yet lol .. I read that some lenses have a setting to compensate for the difference in focus but since I've had it (about a month) I just focus normally and attach the filter it seems to be ok .. I'll zoom in on my lcd screen to make sure its fairly sharp. Seems to be ok so far.


Ahh I forget exposing! lol ... What I do is these steps ..

1 - set white balance
2 - compose the image
3 - focus
4 - attach filter
5 - adjust fstop/shutterspeed when the filters attached
6 - shoot photo
7 - evaluate on the historgram and just how it looks in general
8 - reshoot if need be

bracketing works well for ir.. Ir needs to be slightly overexposed I find to make it look nice.

Heres the broken link

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that last shot is so cool

p.s exposure times are somewhat long when using a filter so youll need a tripod!!!

Thanks for the tutorial, I'll have to check this out. Uber cool.

thanks for that!

Cool. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I converted a P&S camera to infrared for a DIY total cost of about $100 including the camera. The up side of the conversion that there is plenty of light for the f2.8 lens during the day to do handheld shots at ISO100 downside because of the sensor type everything above ISO200 or 5 second exposure is noisy with or without infrared.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/1690487860/" title="Infrared Converted Olympus C-4000 4M pixel P&amp;S by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2002/1690487860_ec200025c4.jpg" width="500" height="334" alt="Infrared Converted Olympus C-4000 4M pixel P&amp;S"></a>

I set white balance on grass.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/2727083098/" title="Infrared Storm by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3151/2727083098_a0af54aaf8.jpg" width="500" height="348" alt="Infrared Storm"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/2291450424/" title="Ice Breaking Ferry Infrared by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2403/2291450424_ebbfc37607.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="Ice Breaking Ferry Infrared"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/2958023499/" title="Inna In Infrared by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2958023499_5c17f412c2.jpg" width="374" height="500" alt="Inna In Infrared"></a>

Film is also an easy way to get into infrared. The problem is that focus can be difficult as most lens don't have the same focus point in IR as they have in visible light.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/710218784/" title="Infrared-22 by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1364/710218784_58628364e6.jpg" width="500" height="336" alt="Infrared-22"></a>

Love these shots, especially interesting the white balance effect on the sky! Big thanks for sharing

I bought a little Sony Point and Shot that was coverted to IR. Here are a few samples. I have more to process and figure that it is a project for a cold winter's day when I do not want to go outside!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annie57/3837924131/" title="DSC00289post.two by amcdermaid05, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3837924131_af5dd86782_o.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="DSC00289post.two"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annie57/3908230018/" title="post.217.ZZJPG by amcdermaid05, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/3908230018_b0c829989b_o.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="post.217.ZZJPG"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annie57/3837926831/" title="DSC00448plost. by amcdermaid05, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2658/3837926831_3eccca1a47_o.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="DSC00448plost."></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annie57/3837922093/" title="post.242playtwo by amcdermaid05, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2494/3837922093_2b6b63249b_o.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="post.242playtwo"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annie57/3838716460/" title="DSC00434post by amcdermaid05, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/3838716460_b54efc1a69_o.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="DSC00434post"></a>

1st and third are amazing, good job

Loving this thread already, now you guys will leave me broke by the end of this month good that I have a BD coming up

a tip i picked up and tried. Fully expose some film and it will work like an IR filter in front of your lens (may take a couple layers) this worked with my little camera phone.. not the greatest but does the job.

Note this works only with colour film.

you can also try using two linear polarizers set 90 degrees apart - just harder to find linear polarizers these days

would that work with the lenses on sunglasses? (time to test this out at work haha)

2 linear work as a nuetral density filter not infrared no?

They may work because they do not polarize infrared when they are 100% crossed they sort of let in some infrared well blocking much of the visible. This depends on the type of polarizer so it may or may not work.

The use the fact that colour film transmits infrared to digitally remove dust (digital ICE)

If you're interested in converting your DSLR etc into an infrared camera, have a look at these guys:

http://www.lifepixel.com

My friend did his D70 and said it was fairly simple to do as long as you're not all thumbs. I'm told that taking apart a Canon SLR is a bit more complex and requires a bit more work.

Taken out my front window with Hoya r72 filter, canon FD 24mm f/2.8 wide open, hand held, shot RAW. Some ACR 6.1 processing. Nothing special, just my first IR photo. But does show hand held is possible with the r72, providing you don't need to blow it up to much.


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/475 ... 1e775a.jpg

opps

And it was shot with an E-PL1

A useful tutorial

http://www.lifepixel.com/videos/basic-i ... -info.html

The latter part is more oriented to their camera conversion, but still a good tutorial on the whole.

Below is just simple colour channel swap

Since I use tripod I cant post infrared photos in the other thread .. So I'll turn this into the Official Infrared thread and any IR photos are welcome .. I wrote this tutorial soo long ago .. Did anyone start shooting it since?? If so post your stuff!!!
















If anyone has any IR questions shoot me a msg or ask on here Ill try and help ya out .. or you can borrow my filter if you'd like

Because I have no idea why the restriction on filters and such in the other thread here are a couple of recent ones.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/4720985069/" title="CN Tower IR by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1359/4720985069_a5087559c0_b.jpg" width="1000" height="748" alt="CN Tower IR"></a>


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrix_feet/4713601587/" title="Toronto Infrared by Metrix X, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4713601587_2b512b2264_b.jpg" width="1000" height="748" alt="Toronto Infrared"></a>

Hey Ryan is that done with Film??

No the same cheap P&S as in my above posting.

http://blog.metrix-x.com/2007/10/infrar ... 00-4m.html

I tried using IR filters but it was just too much hassle. Below a couple of IR shots done with the IR modified 20D and Pentax-M 20mm f4:

If you guys enjoy IR work I suggest you check out the flickr member " syncros " best ir stuff I have seen

Is anyone here doing IR shots with film? Any idea how it compares with results from digital? Any recommendations (though I can see only a few options- Rollei, Ilford and Efke).

I was thinking of trying shooting sone IR out with medium format... been wanting to give it a go for some time....