Brief intro to infrared..... as promised.

[g8ina]

This is my original artile on introduction to infrared as posted in photography-cafe.com a year or 2 ago. I will update it later as I need to go out now.

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Ive been doing infrared for a while now and have had a few folk ask how it is done, so I thought I'd just jot down a few of the things I've learned about it. I use a Nikon D70 and D200 for infrared, both are fine, but the D70 has a huge edge.

* I use a Hoya R72 filter - I started by using a Cokin fit cheapie but its not very good.

* I always shoot in fully manual mode, including focus.

* I always try and use the smallest aperture I can, this increases contrast and helps with the focus shift you will get when shooting in IR.

* I always take a full colour shot first, so I can mix the colour back into the infrared using HDR techniques.

* I always take 4 or 5 bracketed infrared shots.

* I use a variety of Photoshop action sets to do my convertions, it makes it a lot easier (listed below).

OK, bullet points over, I'll go thru a sequence I use for taking the shot.

Firstly, there is little point in trying to shoot IR on a cloudy, cold winters day, wait for summer, it **so** much easier You *will* need a very stable tripod. You *will* need a remote shutter release.

Setup the shot without the IR filter, and take a couple of bracketed shots for reference.

Next, and be careful not to move the tripod here, fix the filter to the lens, and switch to manual mode for exposure *and* focus otherwise the camera will hunt for focus lock. Use the remote shutter release to prevent camera shake, with mirror lockup if u have it.

You will lose anything up to 10 or 12 EV when switching to IR, so if your standard mode is say, 1/250th second, u will need anything from 1 to 30 seconds depending on aperture and light/heat conditions. I dont think I've ever used anything slower than 30 seconds.

Always chimp the shots you take, and adjust exposure accordingly - a dark shot in IR is often more useful than a light one, so check the histogram too, it need to be about 1/3 to the dark side. Take a good few bracketed around your optimum piont anyway, just in case. Don't forget to use smaller apertures where possible, this increases the DOF (which also accounts for the IR focus shift) and improves contrast.

If u look at older lenses, they will have a red dot off one side of the DOF distance marks. This is for IR, because infrared light has a much shorter wavelength than visible, it shifts the focus point. Newer lenses dont tend to have the red dot, so you must compensate in other ways.

Dont worry about people walking across your shot, on a 20 or 30 sec exposure, u probably wont see them

Now onto processing -

You will notice that your main IR shots will appear to have only one colour in them (depending on camera of course - some compacts like the Olympus 2020/3030 can give very good colours with IR).

Import your shot into Photoshop, and first of all, use "Image/Adjustments/Black & White". Reduce the magenta, blue & cyan to zero, or near zero, and increase yellow, green and red to suit. This darkens skies, and makes grass and leaves go white. You will need to fiddle about to get the right balances here.

Once that is done, you can add noise if required, and any other effects you like - I like a very dark IR image, with a glow and a vignette around it, but from here on its all personal taste. Another thing I like to do is add colour data back into the shot by using the original full colour shot in HDR, I do like the washed out look it gives, while maintaining the high contrast of the IR shot.

I also use some freely available Photoshop action sets, like "Dave's Ethereal Glow", "Infrared (GFA)", "HDR for Dummies" and "Amanda's Outer Vignette", google will find these for you.

[g8ina]

OK, since writing that I have made a few more changes to the way I go....

White balance :
Setup to take a shot of green grass, widest aperture, maximum out of focus. Place the IR filter on the lens and take the shot as a custom white balance. This will straighten out any colour imbalances (usually deep red), and in some older cameras will give good false colour. The D70 is not so good with the colour and the D200 stands little chance !

I am about to replace the IR blocking filter in my little freegle Olympus C300 with a simple piece of 2mm perspex backed with some exposed developed film. Im hoping that it wont throw the focus off too much.

Ill keep this thread updated with progress, please feel free to add any comments or questions.

[g8ina]

Well, the C300 died, I pulled a little too hard and snapped one of the PCB wiring looms, no way to fix that !

I also managed to get an Olympus D-380 though, and with a bit more care, I have successfully replaced the IR blocking filter with a piece of 3mm IR filter material and the results are very good.

The 962 perspex does not transmit any visible light, and its a 850nm filter.

I'm still after any more unwanted old digital cameras for more experiments, so if anyone has any old Oly's or Fuji's they dont want .....

[g8ina]

woohoo, just picked up another Oly 2000 off ebay

Will report back with mods status and samples

[g8ina]

OK, quick update-

Failure : Fuji 1300. I took the filter out and added a thin plastic filter but the focus is still wayyy too far off. I'll put the filter back I think. edit _ I broke it when trying the last mod

Success : Olympus D-380, uses the Perspex filter internally. Good results. On ebay Tuesday evening.

Success : Olympus C2000, uses external R72 filter on tube extender, good false colour results but only 2.11 megapixels.

Success : Olympus C3030, excelllent results. Internal filter swapped out for Perspex, maintains excellent focus and very nice 3.3MP results. Mono, only, no false colour.

This is a test for the 3030 :-



Ive since discovered that the Perspex is rated at about 850nm, not 962 as it's name suggests.

[Whiternoise]

Awesome stuff

We've got an R72 at PhotoSoc in Warwick Uni, it goes very well with the club Nikon D50 (fairly famous for its ability to be IR modded). I really must take it out sometime, sadly Nikon decided to be more scrupulous with the filter on the D90 which is a bit pap for this sort of stuff. You get 6MP and the "SLR factor" too - plus D50s are fairly reasonable now pricewise. It hasn't been modified, but you can take exposures of 1/2s inside and decent exposures outside (1/100, 1/60). The only problem is nailing the focus so a tripod is sometimes necessary, but it still means you can get nice frozen trees rather than everything blurred out.

The D90 can give astounding IR pictures, but you need a 'pod and 20 seconds to play with. When I get back on campus, I'll have a play. Been meaning to get some Ilford IR film too

[g8ina]

OK, today I am offering a couple of comparison shots between the fully converted 850nm C3030, and the externally fitted R72 on C2000. See what you think ?

C2000, R72 -


C3030, 850nm internal -


C2000 R72 (this isnt quite fair as the ISO is 400, hence higher noise) -


C3030 850nm -


I think Im going to sell the C2000 with its extension tube and R72, anyone interested ?

[g8ina]

OK another quick update :

Another failure - a Nikon 2500, damaged one of the ICs when dismantling it for the third time

Another success - a Sony DSC-P73, 4.1MPX. This was *really* easy to swap out the hotmirror filter for my 690nM Perspex. Im just waiting for a memory card from a friend before fully testing.

I've sold the C3030.

I've now fully converted the C2000 with 690nM Perspex and this is also now for sale. I't's in the for sale section http://forums.hexus.net/classifieds-...ml#post1984231

Some sample shots from the C2000, some converted to full monochrome, some with a touch of false colour:-

Sywell Church -


Abington Church -


Wilby Church -


and two from my usual haunt, Summer Leys -

[g8ina]

Done another Sony P73, sold, and an Olympus C720UZ, also sold

New 680nM filter for D70 arrived.

Test shots -

The new white balance trick is interesting. My new filter shows a slight variation in response, so the usual "blurred green grass" white balance preset trick gave a severe orange cast. I took a test shot, with auto wb of a white card, imported that shot into Pshop and inverted it, then printed out the result (turquoise-ish). I used this printout to shoot a new preset wb. Im quite happy with this and am even closer to being able to afford getting the D70 done professionally

Edit : actually, green grass is still superior as it gives a true response in IR, the green/turqoise card doesnt.

Oh and these are at 1600 ISO, so a bit noisy. Advantage of the 680nM is that I can actually see thru it and therefore compose in the viewfinder

edit : oopsies, I deleted these off my server !

[g8ina]

quickie -

I currently have a converted Olympus C40z (a C4000 in compact format) at about 680nm with good false colour, n Olympus C3020 at 850nm, monochrome only and a Sony P12 with some false colour at 730nm.

Just wondering if there might be any interest if I put them in the for sale section ?

edit - now added to for sale.