IR Archives - Infrared Conversions, IR Modifications & Photography Tutorials

IR Fireworks

What to do on the 4^th of July… Humm… Grill? Done. Catch up with family? Done. Relax? Done. Watch fireworks? Wait a second… How many of you have photographed fireworks? I’m guilty. But who’s photographed fireworks in IR? I’ve never done that, and probably few have. Let’s give it a try.

I climbed on the roof of my house to get a better vantage point and set-up my full spectrum 5D Mk II with a 720nm filter.

I use a Hoodman Loupe for focusing my 5D, since the filter blocks the visible light and makes the viewfinder useless. This technique works quite well for me and is what I’ve been using for more than 5 years. I wrote a blog on the topic.

I knew about where to look for the fireworks. So I installed my Pentax 67 55mm medium format lens and prefocused before it turned dark. It’s more difficult to focus once it is dark. I connected my shutter release and then waited…

At 9 o’clock on the dot, the fireworks began. I was shooting exposures from about 3-10 seconds at ISO 400 and f/5.6. This seemed to work well. Adjustments in framing, focusing and exposure need to be done quickly, as the fireworks continue. I continued to shoot until my memory card was full. It was close to 9:30, which is when the firework show typically ceases. A quick back of the camera indicated that I had captured some interesting shots.

So where were the trouble spots? First, I noticed that the 55mm lens had some significant internal reflections. I’m not sure if this was caused by the filter, or the basic lens design itself. My EF24-70mm f/2.8 has a similar issue with super-contrasting scenes. I’ll have to set-up an experiment to test my lenses under these conditions. I’ll share the results here. The three photos below, though still interesting show the effect of the internal reflection.

Releasing the shutter release mid explosion halts the motion of the firework and provides a truncated look. Note also a second shell climbing to altitude.

The other problem I encountered was the wind. I was standing on my roof and at times needed to grip the tripod to insure that it didn’t take a tumble. Interestingly, the wind also had an effect of blowing the fireworks. Many didn’t have the traditional firework shape, but rather a skewed , wind-swept look. This was also interesting.

Finally, as with any long exposures on digital cameras, there are some required management of hot pixels. Most modern DSLR’s have internal noise processing, But this requires an equal-length dark exposure for each light exposure. So I prefer to do this off-line using the technique outlined here . Since the exposures were fairly short, the hot pixels are manageable, even by manual removal methods.

I did very little post processing of these images. I set the camera with a custom white balance on a green subject. Most images were posted after a little cropping and re-sizing for the blog format, but not much more than that. I did process several in B&W, since that’s my favorite IR medium. Some photos have a bit of an abstract look to them.

By the time the fireworks show was over, the mosquitoes had found me. So I gathered up my tripod, camera bag, loupe and flashlight and headed off the roof. It all ended well and I enjoyed the experience. I hope you’ll give it a try next year.

Happy 4^th of July…

The Great Minor White and Infrared Photography

Born in 1908, Minor White was something different in terms of how and why he photographed. He incorporated as much of his own beliefs and philosophies into his work as he did photographic technique. His work is a mix of his mentality and the emotion he felt towards a scene or subject. He injected a part of himself into all the photographs he made. Bestowed by him are such words as “The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.” and one of my personal favorite quotes about us photographer’s mentality “…all photographs are self-portraits”.

Minor White-By Imogene Cunningham

It was with the existential mindset that White approached his photographs and perhaps there was none of his work as idealistically surreal as his adventures into the world of infrared. Not only was he a prolific photographer in the artistic and technical sense but he was one of the early practitioners of infrared photography who brought it’s incredible appeal to the masses. The IR images he made, just like his other works, projected a world blended with both the physical landscape and his own personal creativity.

By Minor White, 1958

By Minor White, 1955

By Minor White, 1955

Minor White and Infrared

How did Minor White make his IR photographs? With magic…. Well no, not exactly magic, but it certainly looked that way. Minor White used black and white infrared film, usually large format 4×5, to capture his dreamlike scenes. The infrared or more accurately “near-infrared” light spectrum falls around the 700-1200nm range and infrared film is manufactured to be sensitive to these wavelengths. However, seeing as IR film is also still sensitive to other wavelengths of light, IR filters must also be attached to the camera lens in order to filter out other types of unwanted light that falls in the more visible spectral range. It’s this filtration of the normally visible light and the inclusion of the near IR spectrum which we generally don’t see which gives IR photography their ghost-like quality. Development of the IR is surprising the same as many other conventional black and white films and requires basic darkroom techniques and chemicals.

IR Lens Filters

IR 35mm film

You may be wondering, “So why can’t I just use an IR filter on my digital camera to make IR photos?” And that’s good question. The answer lies in the very construction of most modern digital cameras themselves. IR wavelengths are generally unwanted and in conventional photography and therefore modern digital cameras have a built in IR filter that is placed in front of the image sensor to block out IR light. Even if an IR filter was placed on the lens the resulting transmitted IR light would in turn be filtered out by the camera’s own internal filter. So, how can you enable your digital camera to make IR photographs? Read on….

IR Photography in the Digital Age

As I mentioned earlier, the largest obstacle that stands in the way of making IR images with your currently digital camera is the built in IR sensor filter inside your camera. So if you want to venture into the world of IR photography this filter must be modified through an infrared camera conversion process.

New IR translucent filter being installed

This means that your camera’s sensor is now sensitive to incoming IR light. There are also many other possibilities to expand your infrared horizons with today’s digital camera bodies. Full spectrum, color IR, and a host of other tailored IR imaging effects can be produced depending on the type of conversion and IR lens filter combinations you happen to choose. The benefits to Find out more about infrared conversion possibilities here.

A Final Word About Minor White and Infrared Photography

The work of Minor White was profound, beautiful, innovative, provocative, and at times quite sad. His ventures into the world of IR photography showed us a the wonderment that is all around us, yet invisible all the same. His images speak volumes to the life he lived and to the way he approached the art of photography.

Today, we have so many ways to practice IR photowork whether it is with film and filters or with our digital cameras through a dedicated IR conversion. If you are considering the latter route, be sure to learn as much as possible about the possibilities and limits of digital IR conversions. Make sure whoever you trust your beloved camera to has the reputation for quality that you and your gear deserve. Read more about IR digital camera conversion here at LifePixel and be sure to check out what people just like you have to say about the level of service offered by the LifePixel team!

Bracketed Exposures for IR photography

What are bracketed exposures? If you’re familiar with this term, you know how useful they can be. There are multiple uses for bracketed exposures, but they are especially helpful in IR photography. Shooting bracketed exposures is where the camera is set-up to shoot the same scene, but at different exposures.

Nearly all stock cameras are meant to shoot in color. So when we get into the optics and start removing filters or adding other filters, the camera doesn’t work the same. The one area that really takes a beating is the metering. After a modification, the metering will still be fairly close. But shooting in IR or full spectrum will definitely change the way the camera’s metering system sees the world. I find that my full spectrum modified Canon 5D Mk II with a 740nm filter will usually meter a ½ to 1 stop (usually denoted by EV) brighter than a normal scene. Most of my other modified cameras were the same.

The shows a series of 3 bracketed exposures at -1, 0 +1 EV

When I shoot IR photos, I shoot bracketed exposures as a rule. I’ve had too many IR photos where I thought the metering was accurate only to find that there are highlights in the scene that are blown out (camera’s histogram is clipped on the RHS). Shooting bracketed exposures nearly always helps me recover these highlights or even allows me to process a different shot that is at the + or – end of the bracket.

How do you begin doing this? Well, most cameras these days will allow the use of bracketed exposures. This is where the camera will shoot 3 or more exposures for each image. Depending on how you set it up, the camera will typically shoot a normal exposure and one under exposed and another that is over exposed. Some cameras will shoot additional over/under frames and also allow you to skew how these different exposures are framed in the overall bracket. I like to set my camera to shoot the bracketed exposures in high speed mode, so I can get the 3 images in rapid succession with a single shutter button press.

This is the menu option for setting bracketed exposures on a Canon 7D. This one is set for -1, 0 +1 EV

My cameras (as to many) have several programmable settings where I can set f/stop, ISO, exposure mode, bracketed exposures, etc. So I have 2 custom settings that shoot only bracketed. On my camera, C1 is set up for 1 stop over and under. The camera will record 1 normally metered frame, one frame that is one stop under and one frame that is one stop over. C2 is the same operation except for 2 stops over/under. This makes it quick and easy for me to change the camera to different situations where 1 or 2 stops might be needed.

Many DSLR’s have the ability to set custom settings. This one is a Canon 5D MkII

So why else would I shoot bracketed exposures? One great feature is HDR. If you’re shooting a scene that has both bright and dark elements or the scene spans more dynamic range than a single shot can record, HDR or some other technique of exposure masking or blending is the way to do this. It’s also very helpful to have multiple exposures when shooting on the shadow side of the Sun, or toward the Sun. Many times you won’t see the need for HDR until after you return and are processing your images. It’s too late to do an HDR at that point. So by shooting bracketed exposures, you have the ability to do HDR or exposure blending on shots, after the fact.

This is an HDR of the 3 images shown above.

Isn’t shooting bracketed exposures going to wear out my camera? Won’t it take more memory? Yep, for both. Your shutter is now clicking 3 or more times for each scene. All of these shots have to be recorded on the memory card. Of the 7 modern DSLR’s I’ve owned, I’ve only replaced the shutter on one camera (my 30D), and that was at about 3700 clicks, for sure an anomaly. Most prosumer DSLR’s are good for 100k -150k shutter clicks. I’ve never shot 100k shots on any of my cameras. But I’m not a professional photographer. I venture to guess that most other casual shooters are the same. As for the memory consumption, memory cards are cheap.

Another example of scene that benefited from having more than a single exposure

There is a little good news. If you focus and shoot your IR like I described in my last blog, focusing through live-view, the mirror will stay locked up. So the wear associated with the mirror flipping up and down is removed from this operation. It also helps to use a tripod when shooting bracketed exposures, especially if you’re going to be using them for HDR. You can still align the images in post-processing. But it’s easier if the images begin with good alignment. I prefer to shoot all my IR with a tripod.

Scenes that are shot toward the Sun typically have a high dynamic range that benefit from having bracketed exposures

If you’re comfortable with shooting regular exposures with your IR photography, by all means proceed. I find that shooting bracketed exposures helps save many images that might have otherwise been unusable. Happy shooting.

Southwest IR Photography

Like many other things in life, we think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I enjoy digging through forums and seeing photographs of other photographers. I used to think that all these photographers had better subjects for photography. This is especially true when I got into IR photography. IR seems to do best with lots of greenery in the scene, or that’s what I used to think.

Living in the desert southwest, we don’t have much greenery. What we do have is lots of dust, rocks and cactus. When I first got started doing IR photography, I envied people that lived in greener locales. But that’s no longer the case. IR photography is so much more than the iconic white foliage on trees. After shooting IR for several years, I found that it is a great tool for any scenery.

During my early IR photography experiments, I tried the color swapping techniques. But I always returned to my B&W versions. I find it much more challenging to get an interesting B&W photo. I began to have an interest in B&W images with my astrophotography. It happened sort of by accident. I live in an area with fairly heavy light pollution. So it was much easier to shoot B&W images using a specific narrow bandwidth filter (called Hydrogen Alpha).

My IR photography spun off of my astrophotography, since modified cameras are sometimes also needed for shooting nebula. I started with the iconic photos of trees with white leaves and liked the results.

Shooting IR photos limited me to summer photography. So I began to experiment shooting in the fall and winter. It was then that I saw that IR had a lot of potential for B&W. I also learned what looks good in IR photos and began looking for other subjects. Not a leaf in sight in this photo.

IR is also great for adding interest to what might otherwise be considered junk. I shot this through a broken window of an abandoned building. I wasn’t expecting much from this photo, being hand held in a dark environment. It was windy & raining. I was holding an umbrella and my tripod wasn’t tall enough to reach the height of the window. But I loved the result.

We can have some fairly ugly weather here in the desert. Spring brings us wind, and a lot of it. At times the wind is strong enough to pick up the dirt. Voila, dust storm. I wouldn’t advocate taking your camera gear out in a dust storm. For those willing, there are some interesting shots to be had. This is probably one of my all-time favorite IR photos. Ironically, it was also one of my first. There was no live view focusing. The camera wasn’t focus calibrated (link here for focus calibration) and I had no tripod. To make matters worse, the camera I used was a first generation 6.3MP Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) that I had converted on my own to full spectrum, not something I’d recommend.

This was a shot that I probably could not have done at any other time. Behind the tree is the rest of the city, roads and mountains. Some years later, the tree looks much different (with broken branches and its age showing). It also didn’t take long to find out that IR photography is great for landscape shots.

IR is also a fantastic tool for shooting clouds and inclement weather. So when other photographers are heading home, I’m usually heading out. It seems these days that my preference is to shoot IR in poor weather.

IR photos also seems to bring out the old-ness of subjects. I really enjoy shooting old, rundown buildings or vehicles. IR makes these attractive subjects even more interesting.

Modern subjects seem to be just as attractive in IR. Combining the subject and the poor weather is always nice.

Although not really limited to IR, I find that shooting Panoramas gives my IR images a little punch, and also the ability to print them larger. There’s also the combination of all the techniques. It keeps the excitement in photography and the challenge in IR photography.

Nearly every IR photographer starts out by shooting the iconic white foliage. I’m no different. It’s what you do after this that makes IR so interesting. Most hang up their IR cameras and move on. For me, it’s basically started my photography world. I spent the last 40 years doing regular photography and the last 5 shooting IR. I’ve enjoyed the latter so much more. You may not think that you live in an area best for IR photography. I challenge you to find and shoot the subjects that you have in your area and make the most of them. You never know what emerges from the seemingly uninteresting.

Confront Your Photographic Challenges

Are there times when you feel challenged to complete an assignment, or even to just go out and take some photographs? Tangential activities take on an unanticipated urgency. I have never really understood what drives this onset of dispassion for the task, but I know I have experienced it many times, and I find it helps to set myself a few challenges and hold myself accountable until each of my personal challenges are completed.

Nature photographer Jim Brandenburg is known for challenging himself. Jim decided to limit his images to only one photograph a day for a 90-day period between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. His project was deeply personal, and the amazing work that developed over the months most certainly speaks for itself.

Here are a couple of ways you can provoke your challenges, and learn a few new techniques in the process:

Join a Photo challenge site – One great site, Photochallenge.org encourages you to increase your photographic skills by committing to a photo challenge. No tutorials, just photographers interacting with each other. The team sets out common guidelines, which are easy to understand and simple to follow. The challenges are specific, such as; capture black and white shots of the human body, or take portraits of people or animals, and then share with others also participating in the challenge. If you are not quite up to engaging at that level, it is still worth visiting the site to view images and to ultimately gain the courage to start interacting online with other photographers.

Commit to taking a tutorial a week – There are many sites that provide free tutorials, such as Iheartfaces as well as subscription based sites like CreativeLive, KelbyOne, and Lynda.com that offer the opportunity to learn a little more about your camera, as well as how to use software applications to successfully edit your images. If you find it easier to learn in a classroom, give yourself the gift of a workshop a year. The secret is to follow through on what you have learned.

Set specific parameters – Make some definitive decisions each time you go out to take images. Consider some of these ideas:

1 – Take only one lens with you. If you do not have fixed lenses, choose a zoom lens focal length and don’t be tempted to change it. This will encourage you to position yourself correctly for each shot. It will also help you to really understand the capabilities of each lens.

2 – Utilize the full frame. Fill your frame with the shot and don’t plan on cropping in post. This will encourage correct orientation, and enable you to make every pixel count.

3 – Decide upon a color or texture and concentrate on images of that color or texture. This makes you evaluate your surroundings and notice many things you may not normally have seen.

4 – While teaching at a photographic conference in Las Vegas, I played around with the color/full frame challenge and spent a couple of hours in the beautiful botanical gardens located in the Bellagio hotel. I started with some fairly simple images and then dug down into the fragility of petals. I found myself down a whole new path involving the combination of shadow and color.

5 – Dedicate a photographic day to simply using your mobile phone, and get creative. There are many apps for editing camera phone images and some of the results are pretty impressive. While boating in Maine, I was able to capture the old Maine Windjammer, the Isaac H. Evans. I challenged myself to use only my mobile phone all day so that I would concentrate on light and composition. It was quite refreshing to have my head up and looking at my subject, rather than staring down the camera viewfinder!

6 – Limit the number of images you take. Imagine you do not have the capability of taking many photographs. Make every image count, and don’t cheat by erasing images!

Sometimes it is important to try to recognize the route of the challenged feeling! Each time I head up to Rockport, Maine to teach drone flight and aerial photography, I find myself having to overcome the inherent fears surrounding the nature of the class. I am not immune to the constant commentary surrounding the use of drones and their various applications. In order to overcome those mental challenges, I remind myself that I teach because I enjoy teaching, and the pleasure I receive from watching students initially grapple with the technology, and then start creating beautiful images is most certainly more contagious than the niggling doubts in my head. I also take time out to go and fly with my teaching partner and hone my skills a little more.

Flying over water takes a little more concentration and awareness of the wind conditions. but the results can be incredibly rewarding. The image above is a single capture, and below, a 5 image panorama created in Lightroom. These were taken using a DJI Phantom 4.

Finally, I have also noticed that as infrared photography becomes more popular, there are many discussion groups debating about what constitutes a good IR image. No matter what my assignment, I carry my converted Canon 1DS with me and find an opportunity to experiment.

It is interesting to compare my results with images taken from the Phantom 4. In the image below, I am actually much closer to the boats in the harbor, but hovering over the water.

I challenge you all to experiment with IR. If you are not yet ready to convert one of your cameras, consider purchasing a filter that somewhat replicates the look and feel, and this will give you a great introduction. I am pretty sure you will soon be hooked. Whatever your end goal, don’t let those perceived or real challenges get in the way and don’t let the negativity of others (or your own doubts) prohibit your creativity.

IR Fireworks

The Great Minor White and Infrared Photography

Minor White and Infrared

IR Photography in the Digital Age

A Final Word About Minor White and Infrared Photography

Bracketed Exposures for IR photography

Southwest IR Photography

Confront Your Photographic Challenges

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Learn the Basics

Resources

Company