D5o Infrared White Balance

[TLI]

Ok, so I got this opteka R72 infrared filter for my nikon d50 and im using the nikon nikkor 50mm F1.8 lens. I can't get the WB right for whatever reason. It's either pinkish or just B&W. What am I doing wrong? What do I need to do to get the sephia tone?

So far Ive tried WB'ing on grass using both measure and using a picture reference from an Auto WB picture.

Can anyone help me with this please?

 

[KmH]

The filter is intended to produce a black and white effect. The pink sounds like you had your D50 set to a flouresent white balance.

The filter you purchased is a low quality filter. However, you only paid $30 or so for it.

Decent IR filters start at about 5 times that and quality IR filters go for 10 times that.

Check out Tiffen, Hoya, and top of the line B+W (not B&W) brand filters.

 

[Josh66]

It's going to be more or less black & white - even if you don't convert it to greyscale.

Here's one example.

 

[Garbz]

IR will always be shades of monochrome. I am not sure what you are trying to achieve with "white balancing." Using a 720nm cutoff there is sufficient colour bleed into the visible band that if you whitebalance cool enough you will end up with two distinct colours, red and blue.

What I can suggest is ignore it. Firstly shoot RAW, this is a necessity anyway, and then completely ignore the white balance setting since you can adjust it in post. Then think of the effect that you are trying to achieve. Some effects require whitebalancing to around 2200k to get the 2 colour effect (seen as slightly blue trees in this one: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2180/2433580880_9c97964125_b.jpg). Some effects are easily achieved by adjusting the tint to make the image look yellow before processing (to make the sky blue when you do a channel swap http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2305/2301198605_f3d72526c7_b.jpg), and some images it just simply doesn't matter what the white balance is set to.

Don't get stuck on this middle step. Providing you aren't clipping the highlights the white balance isn't even a proper means to an end. I would suggest the following:

- Shoot RAW (you'll need it unless your camera has been specifically modified).
- Set the white balance as cool as you can in camera (this allows you to shoot with the highest exposure without clipping the red channel).
- Find out what you want to do and fire up Photoshop

There's nothing wrong with entry level filters to start with. I've used the Opteka before and they aren't much of a step away from the Hoya SMC series providing no light is hitting the filter element causing flare.

 

[TLI]

So i got the Hoya R72 and this is a noticable difference, especially in camera. However, the problem that I'm getting is, the WB is what I want it to be for the Red Blue Channel swap but when I open them in photoshop they go orange or red again.. And yes I have been shooting in RAW

 

[Garbz]

That's because you are shooting in RAW. RAW is a filetype without any camera settings applied including white balance. Make sure in Adobe CameraRAW white balance is set to "As Shot" or if that doesn't work (it doesn't on some cameras) set it manually to get the desired result.