Once again it will take some experimentation.

Some results – IR photography

I’m just going to put a few samples up here, with some notes on how they were made. IR photography like this is always going to be somewhat experimental and how you make use of the results will vary with your tastes and eventual use for the images. Note that you could shoot IR video on the 5D2 if you wanted.

First up, I went for a walk down our street…

This is the converted raw file, with minor adjustments to WB/tint/levels/shadows to get a ‘balanced looking image – some variations in ‘colour’ are noticeable.

EF24-70 @70mm 1/160 f/8

Leaves reflect a lot of IR, giving the luminous tree effect – you will quickly see that this features in a lot of people’s IR photography…

Still in ACR, I’ve converted to greyscale and added a small amount of ‘clarity’ or local contrast enhancement.

Note how the sky has lost a bit of smoothness.

EF24-70 @70mm 1/160 f/8

It’s very easy to push things too far and get visible noise and other image artefacts appear.

Exposures are similar to what you would expect in daylight – sensitivity is lower, but not much.

Below, a more subtly converted scene, where I’ve used Nik Silver Efex Pro for the B&W conversion.

EF24-70 @24mm 1/80 f/8

If you think of the WB adjustments you are making in ACR, they tend to come up a bit short. I open the image and then apply a curves layer – using the grey balance dropper, I can neutralise the overall colour cast against some arbitrary ‘white point’ and move further from the purple look of the earlier street shot.

Application of some strong curves can bring a more neutral look to the colour range. A vibrance adjustment can then bump up the residual ‘colour’, but I’m left with a fairly low contrast image.

To fix this, I’ve also carried out a black and white conversion of the image and left this as a new layer. By switching this layer’s blending mode to luminance and adjusting the opacity, I can reintroduce some contrast to the coloured image.

EF24-70 @24mm 1/80 f/8

A similar approach brings out some colour variation in this night time shot of Leicester City centre.

TS-E17mm 1/25 f/6.3 ISO5000

Fluorescent lighting does seem to show more colour variation.

TS-E17mm 1/20 f/6.3 ISO3200

Some shots just don’t look that different from if I was shooting with a normal camera.

TS-E17mm 1/20 f/6.3 ISO3200

However, IR is probably not so great if you want flattering shots of people (OK, not by my definition of flattering – I have seen some wedding photographers try and get away with it – I remain to be convinced ;-)

Her sleeves and his shirt were black, and the ‘white’ top, bright red – mascara seems to heavily absorb IR.

Note too the very bright light from the small night-light candle (candles give off a lot of IR proportionally to their visible brightness)

Olympus Zuiko 50/1.2 1/50 f/1.2 ISO1250

The Canon 8-15mm fisheye (lens review) makes for interesting detail in some woods, but this shot needs to be printed at 3 feet across to get the real feel of the scene.

Unfortunately, the image is nowhere near as detailed and sharp, compared to if I’d shot it on my Canon 1Ds3. The lens isn’t optimised for IR use and the longer wavelength of IR light means that diffraction starts to show effects a stop or so earlier than with visible light.

EF8-15 @8mm 1/100 f/7.1

EF8-15 @8mm 1/100 f/7.1

It’s a bright (hazy) day and I’m getting used to the fact that green foliage reflects a lot of IR and looks bright.

Did I mention the luminous trees?… ;-)

EF14 2.8L II 1/40 f/8

The leaves below do show up nicely, but I can produce similar effects with software such as Silver Efex Pro for my B&W conversion.

EF8-15 @13mm 1/100 f/7.1 (defished in Fisheyehemi)

A combination of fixing colour and then overlaying a high contrast B&W layer as a luminance blend gives a bit of punch to the image.

First, a version of the image above.

EF8-15 @13mm 1/100 f/7.1 (defished in Fisheyehemi)

Colour variation is partly dependent on the lens you are using – some are better than others in not introducing a degree of ‘brightness’ to the centre of the field. The image below is from using a shift lens and seems to show quite a variation (the centre axis of the lens is towards the bottom of the frame)

TS-E17 1/40 f/8

A similarly converted image from when the sun is out and a few autumn leaves are on the ground.

EF24-70 @30mm 1/40 f/8

Like all IR work, the temptation is to crank the dials up to 11…

EF24-70 @24mm 1/80 f/8

Learning more If the images here have piqued your curiosity, there are many books on IR photography

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Some thoughts and conclusions

When I was first asked if I wanted to borrow the camera, I was interested in two main areas.

First was the purely technical, what were the difficulties of capturing images in infrared and how would I process the sensor data to get usable images out of the camera. How would common items reflect infrared light and how would this be interpreted through the existing RGB Bayer filtration of the sensor.

Secondly, would it be a tool for creating photos I wanted to show, or even use in my day to day professional work as a commercial photographer?

So, what did I find?

Well it takes practice to get consistently good results. Focus needs care and it helps to bracket exposures to allow for the variable amounts of IR light in a scene compared to what you can see.

The ‘creative’ aspects of IR photography are more difficult to pin down from my own point of view.

There is that initial burst of enthusiasm for something different – that urge to explore and see just what you can do.

This is familiar to me when I get any new bit of kit (or software). It’s what I call the ‘new toy’ phase ;-) My view is that such testing is probably best confined to non-paying work rather than our business clients.

A less kind observation would be that: ‘to the man with a new hammer, every problem is a nail’…

With some ‘new toys’, such as camera movements (tilt/shift lenses) or the new 8-15mm fisheye zoom, I’ve found they have in time become essential parts of my commercial photography toolbox. Others, such as HDR, I find need a great deal of care if they are not to become an end in themselves and take over (see my review of Nik HDR Efex, which I do use).

It perhaps won’t come as a surprise that I find bright the majority of ‘colourful’ HDR images tacky and garish – and, just as with the miniature world effect with tilt lenses, I found myself saying, about IR:

‘OK, done the luminous trees – now what?’

I’ve looked around at collections of IR images and do find myself wondering to what amount the bright colours and luminous trees are a crutch to support images that just didn’t quite make the mark on their own.

I’ve not yet seen an IR image where I thought ‘wish I’d took that’ or wanted a print on my wall (my own personal test of images I admire and like)

This is very much a personal view and I know that tastes differ wildly ;-)

It’s been great to experiment with and I really do wish it appealed more to my tastes – it did make me think more about the representation of colour and just how I went about converting my colour originals when I’m working in black and white.

Remember that doing more photography is rarely likely to harm your photographic skills – take a chance and experiment. I may not have any photos to add to my portfolio, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn a lot in the process.