Infrared photography?

[davidedric]

I've noticed a few infrared photos around the net, and they do look interesting (like terrib's recent post). Can anyone suggest resources I can use to read up about it? (I know I could Google, but it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.)

I know it is cart before horse, but i have a Panasonic G5 gathering dust. I could sell it, but body only wouldn't make much, and I know there is a uk company who can convert it to infrared. I thought it might be an interesting extension to the hobby.

Any thoughts welcome.

Dave

[xpatUSA]

I've noticed a few infrared photos around the net, and they do look interesting (like terrib's recent post). Can anyone suggest resources I can use to read up about it? (I know I could Google, but it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.)

I know it is cart before horse, but i have a Panasonic G5 gathering dust. I could sell it, but body only wouldn't make much, and I know there is a uk company who can convert it to infrared. I thought it might be an interesting extension to the hobby.

Any thoughts welcome.

Dave

As to resources, I've put my entire IR folder here temporarily for you to download:

http://kronometric.org/phot/xfer/4David/

Lotsa bed-time reading! There's some extraneous stuff like snaps in there but I couldn't be bothered to filter them out.

A few thoughts:

In the camera conversion, electing to not have an IR pass-filter added to the sensor brings you flexibility by using various filters or even none on the lens. No filters gets you "full spectrum" shooting which is quite flashy!

Full Spectrum (color):



Full Spectrum (B/W):



There will be quite a learning curve to get proper exposures. I find that something that can show raw histograms, eg RawDigger, is most helpful. Basically the standard raw converter turns out magenta crap and channel-swapping sucks, IMHO. ;-)

Perhaps just to try it out, you could pick up any cheap used Sigma DSLR (except SD9) with a kit lens or two on eBay. Sigma because the IR blocking filter is separate from the sensor and easily removable and refittable.

[rpcrowe]

I had an ancient Canon D60 (not the later 60D) DSLR converted to full-time infra-red. It does quite a nice job...



However, if I had this to do over again, I would have selected a smaller physical size camera, so I could just toss it into my camera bag. That way, I could carry the Infra Red conversion anytime without worrying too much about the weight.

[inkista]

Lifepixel, since they do IR conversions on cameras, has some good info on their site. Their basic tutorial on red/blue channel swapping is good, and they have a variety of different filters they offer, so you can get the type of results you want.

I've never used a converted camera for this, but have just screwed on a Hoya R72 and waited out the additional 12 stops on a tripod. Nice bonus is, like an extreme ND, it'll erase crowds for ya.


Panasonic G3, G Vario 14-42 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, iso 160, f/8, 10s. Tripod and timer. Auto curves, red/blue swap.

I adore my G3 for this, given that it has the swivel LCD and all composition is through liveview with exposure simulation. Trying to do this with my 5DMkII/50D is much much MUCH more of a pain, given that the viewfinder is dark enough to be useless, and without a swivel screen and in bright sunlight, trying to compose (especially low to the ground) with the back LCD and exposure simulation can be a PITA. I'd assume with a converted camera, an optical viewfinder could be misleading; so a mirrorless EVF has an advantage here, as you'll still be seeing through the filter. The G5 should be awesome fun for this.

The four main things to keep in mind are:

1. Without a converted camera, you're going to be looking at using a tripod with long shutter speeds (10-30s range for me in bright San Diego sunshine). Mirror lock-up and a cable release can come in handy if your camera allows.
2. You may want to google whether or not any lens you plan to use has an IR hotspot. While visible light reflections may be controlled by the design, IR reflections may not.
3. Try to pick foliage and/or water subjects. Water absorbs infrared and goes black; chlorophyll reflects IR and goes white.
4. Heavy post processing goes into the results, mostly for white balancing and color manipulation.

Out of camera, an infrared shot with a Hoya R72 or other basic IR-pass filter looks a lot like this:



Custom white balance gets you here:



And red/blue channel swapping gets you here:



Combining the channel-swapped color-wise with a visible light shot gets you here:



A lot of what you see as IR shots have been heavily manipulated, or simply made B&W—what comes out of the camera is going to be radically different. Shoot RAW.

[Polar01]

I had Lifepixel convert an old Nikon D70 to IR, lots of fun and some very good articles also.

Cheers: Allan

[rpcrowe]

I made a mistake and went for the lowest price conversion listed on eBay. I don't remember the person's name. He did a pretty good job but, it took an eternity to get my camera back. He always had some sort of an excuse why I didn't have my camera. I finally got it back after a delay of a couple of months

It seems that the weight of the G5 (396 g (0.87 lb / 13.97 oz) is right along with what I would want as an additional carry-along (just in case I want an IR image) camera.

[terrib]

As I later posted in my thread, I used LifePixel. I was very happy with their turnaround and with all the information on their site. Additional to what Kathy Li showed, in LR if you create a custom camera profile which you use on importing then you don't have to do a custom white balance in the field. This was for my Canon - not sure about others.

[inkista]

I made a mistake and went for the lowest price conversion listed on eBay...

It could've been worse. You might've gotten one of the "conversions" that LifePixel puts on their Wall of Shame.