First IR shots

[Ivan Karamasov]

Very nice shots,

I even like the unprocessed one. It somehow looks more real than the others but still surreal at the same time.

The IR-pics I took with my sony f717 did not look like this at all. They needed heavy PP or came out plain green (even though you could completely swivel away the IR-blocker inside the lense).
Anyway a very nice technique to which you should stick to for a while.
greets
I.

[willow1]

very nice..I might add :G

[treed]

Holy crap, that's awesome! Haha I didn't even know that there was such filters out there... dang. From the pictures posted above, I don't get how the IR filter played a big role. Can someone explain why an IR filter is so critical?

[Ivan Karamasov]

to understand what's going on here, one first has to clarify the meaning of an IR-filter.

In contrast to a camera sensor, the human eye cannot detect ir-light (that's why you cannot see the beam of your remote controls). So in order to make the picture look the way you see it when you take it, the camera has to sort out the ir-light.
Now, whereas the built in IR-filters inside your camera prevents infrared light from entering (IR-block-filter), the hoya 72 used by makarjal does exactly the opposite. It blocks the major part (not 100%) of all "natural" light but allows infra-red light to pass (IR-pass-filter). So when using an IR-pass-filter the camera's sensor is exposed to a different range of light, resulting in an alterated exposure.
Example: the green foliage of a tree reflects more ir-light than the trunk. That's why foliage on an ir-photo looks white as if covered by snow while the trunk remains dark. Another example is the sky. clouds reflect large amounts of ir-light whereas the stray light infront of the blue sky contains only low amounts of ir-light. Result: clouds on an ir-photo appear very bright and the contrast to the skys looks much more "dramatic" than in (our) real life.

To achieve these surreal color-effects shown by Makarjal, however, it is important to use an ir-pass-filter that does not completely sort out all "natural" light because you need some differences in color in order to emphasize, mix (etc) them later. If you block out all "natural" light, you will get only monochrome ir-picutres.

[Narmer]

I did this with Photoshop only, so not a true IR.

Read an article this week on IR (made with a CP 8400 and with a Nikon D70 and with a D70 to which the lythium niobate IR filter was removed from the CCD protection.

I would recommend to try to use bulb/tungsten light WHITE BALANCE for IR shots

Narmer

[Ivan Karamasov]

this is a sample of an unprocessed ir-photograph made with the f717 (ir-block-filter turned back).
shutter speed was 1/60 s.
ISO 100
aperture f2

[Ivan Karamasov]

and this is the overworked version

[fmoore]

Here are comparison shots of the fz5 and fz1 with the hoya r72 ir filter; wb set manually with the filter attached. The much stronger in-camera ir blocker in the fz5 is the difference. I kept the aperture constant. Notice the difference in the shutter speed.

FZ5 w/ r72; f2.8, iso80, 1.3s



FZ1 w/ r72; f2.8, iso50, 1/3.2s



More fz1v2 w/r72 shots at http://www.ishots.net/infrared/

[treed]

Hey Ivan, thanks for the explanation man. It makes a lot more sense now. BTW, nice shots.

IR filters are really interesting. I might have to think about getting one sometime.

[chung]

Fmoore: Wow, the FZ1v2 certainly brings out the IR effect much more effectively than the FZ5. Very impressive and very sharp. Can the FZ5 be compensated by leaving the shutter open longer to let the CCD receive more IR light?

Here's a picture I took of a waterfall, I used a long 8sec exposure and f/8 to try to keep it sharp, funny that the water takes on a pinkish hue.

Unfortunately, some water droplets splashed on my "IR filter" film negatives... and smudged it. And I'm out of any other exposed film negatives!!