IR filter

You have a IF protective layer over the sensor in your camera preventing them from reaching it. You have to send it to a place to get it removed, then use an IF filter and apparently you can get some really cool photo's. Plus, you can actually focus TTL, pop the filter on and then take the pic. In the end though, you spend about $400 and I believe the camera is useless for normal photography after that.
 
The above conversion works best on CCD type sensors as they are much more sensitive to IR than CMOS are typically. When using a good IR filter on lens, the camera needs to be on a tripod, shot framed, then filter attached to the lens and exposure made. Exposures are typically over 30 sec at f/2.8 in noon day summer sun. Outstanding images can be made. Oh, and custom W.B. needs to be set on green grass.
 
You can use a standard IR filter on some cameras; i.e. use a d100, since i am using a wratten 89 filter i must use manual focusing and put the filter on after setting up the focus as you can not see anything with the filter on.

you then need to convert the file as it will be magenta.

It depends on how much experience you have with IR if you will like this as much as film as it is not as grainy.

I also a fuji camera that has been converted for IR work, and even with that camera you must use an IR filter; however, they can be handheld and you can see what your shooting. You can also use a special filter that will allow you to take "normal" pictures .
 
an IR filter does nothing more than block out ALL visible light (if it's a true IR filter), and with a regular digital camera, doesn't give that great of an effect...though it can still be somewhat neat. You'll want either a converted sensor, or an old film body to use for IR.
 
What you can do is convert the camera, by taking out the IR-blocking filter in front of the sensor and replace it with some R72 of the same shape and size. By doing that, no filters are needed in front of the lens, and you can still have hand-holdable shutter speeds.
 
The D200 is the most horrible camera for IR photography, and I get bearly acceptable IR type images out of it. The sky doesn't go a nice pure black as it would with IR film, and the shutter speeds are insanely slow (4 seconds in direct sunlight at iso100 f/4.5)

Now that's your worst case. The Canon 350D is about 3-4 stops more sensitive from my testing. The more sensitive the camera the better the IR effect.

You'd be best off getting a film body and loading some Kodak HIE or other IR film of choice in, or getting and old second hand camera and ripping the lowpass filter off the sensor.
 
The ol'Canon G1 was especially good for converting for IR photography. Here's a site that has lots of good info that is applicable for any camera:

http://www.kleptography.com/notes-irconvert.htm

Since IR filters block out visible light almost completely, I would imagine using any type of SLR will be a royal pain. The G1 for example has a seperate optical viewer which simplifies things.
 
There's one method of colour infrared work that seems to be mentioned very rarely: false colour digital IR. This needs a camera with no IR-cut filter in front of the sensor and a deep yellow filter over the lens. You can see though this, of course.

The result of this combination is that the blue channel records only IR (the blue having been stopped by the yellow filter), the green channel records green and IR, and the red channel records red and IR.

This can be re-arranged so that the blue channel shows the visible green image, the green channel shows the visible red image and the red channel shows the IR image, for example. That is how false colour IR film was designed to be used. Many other permutations are possible. Using an R72 will not produce the same results because most of the colour information is lost.

Best,
Helen
 
I have, and yes... (Hoya R72 on a Fuji S2 Pro with a Nikkor 28-55mm))
two_crosses.jpg


and
test7.jpg
 

Most reactions

Back
Top