My first batch of Infrared photos

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Feb 2007 at 00:00

Well I received my Hoya R72 on Monday and been having a bit of a go the last 2 days. Still getting to grips with what works with IR and what doesn't, plus the endless possibilities in PP. Which by the way, does anyone have any tips / tricks / photoshop actions / filters for this type of processing? I would really appreciatte it!!!

Anyway here are a few of the images..

1.

2.

3.

The rest of the photos are in my gallery on my website, you can find them HERE

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Feb 2007 at 00:16

The Nikons are superb for Infrared. Your lens is causing a lot of problems since I can see flare and hotspotting.

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Feb 2007 at 00:20

Fstop11 said:
The Nikons are superb for Infrared. Your lens is causing a lot of problems since I can see flare and hotspotting.

As I was scrolling down to read ** reply I noticed for the first time the red hot spot!! Wierd, never even saw it before!

What's causing it? What's the fix?

Puz · 15 Feb 2007 at 00:46

I remember cyKey being very good at Infrared and I think the hotspots are down to the camera you are using (Nikon D70 !?! ). This linky says something about I think (sorry quick google). He also had some excellent PS actions to sort out the colours in infrared. I'm sure if you look hard enough in the archive here you might find it or just email cyKey, I'm sure he'd be happy to help.

divine` · 15 Feb 2007 at 01:07

hoodmeister did a lot of IR on his D70, he should be able to help

hoodmeister · 15 Feb 2007 at 01:21

It's down to the lens unfortunately, so the "fix" is a different lens or photoshoppery.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Feb 2007 at 01:38

Its not the camera its the lens. I do a lot of Infrared photography for the Canon side of the troops but the D70 is just brilliant for IR due to the sensor protector designed to absorb IR light is not as effective as the Canons but this is exactly why the Nikons are so good.

This is also partly why image tones are different between the two brands.

Canon's 50mm F1.8 is a great lens for IR work but the 1.4 is not so good.

I have no experience with the nikon brand lenses but I do know that my sigma macro lens 105mm is really really good for IR.

The canon 18 - 55 EFs also hot spots like your nikon does. I have brought many images from my 18 - 55 to life by some tinkering in photogshop to remove or reduce the hot spots.

robertgilbert86 · 15 Feb 2007 at 08:00

Wow they all look great! Great attempts for a first time.

Does anyone know the wavelengths the R72 allows? Because I bought a cheapo unbranded IR filter off an auction last year and struggle to nail the tri-tone technique. My one allows 720-1600nm.

Also any links, guides or actions would be great!

Wile E. Coyote · 15 Feb 2007 at 08:08

Fstop11 said:
Nikons are so good.

Quoted for the truth

Nice pics colin. Might put IR photography on my to do list after seeing them

.

Fireskull · 15 Feb 2007 at 08:08

As usual sweet pics Colin

loving the swan flare

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Feb 2007 at 12:16

I think it is due to what aperature is selected. In the other photos there is no hotspot due to the smallest apperature (F22) the others with a hotspot were at quite large aperatures.

Also the other photos with no hotspot were only 30" exposures while the others with hotspots were 60" exposures.

Could these be the problems?

Puz · 15 Feb 2007 at 12:33

As I was so incorrectly accusing the camera for the hotspot I actually didn't get around to saying great shots there Colin. oops !

And I've had a gander at your website, some superb pics on there too.

On a question Fstop, whats the Canon 300D like for infrared shots. The kit lense as u say is a bit naff for it, how about a sigma 10-20mm ?

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Feb 2007 at 12:45

Puz said:
As I was so incorrectly accusing the camera for the hotspot I actually didn't get around to saying great shots there Colin. oops ! And I've had a gander at your website, some superb pics on there too.

On a question Fstop, whats the Canon 300D like for infrared shots. The kit lense as u say is a bit naff for it, how about a sigma 10-20mm ?

Thanks

I think you would need a very thin filter to get those focal lengths with a filter on. You would probably only be able to use the top end of those lengths with a filter.

Mohain · 15 Feb 2007 at 13:04

Cool first efforts Col. As has been said before, experiment a little with different settings to see what you prefer. I think Brads IR action is an oft used action for IR but it looks like you might already have this.

Personally once the conversion is done I like to mute the colours somewhat and loose all traces of red in the image and have not such a saturated blue ... but each to thier own, whatever work for you

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Feb 2007 at 13:13

Puz said:
On a question Fstop, whats the Canon 300D like for infrared shots. The kit lense as u say is a bit naff for it, how about a sigma 10-20mm ?

I have never tried on a 300D but if I were to guess then I would say it would be one of the better canon's to do it with due to its age.

The 10D is better than the 20D due to its age so im going on that theory.

Brads IR action is okay but I have only ever used color swap, the rest I fine tune in hue/saturation, curves, levels.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Feb 2007 at 13:16

Colin_da_Killer said:
I think it is due to what aperature is selected. In the other photos there is no hotspot due to the smallest apperature (F22) the others with a hotspot were at quite large aperatures.

Also the other photos with no hotspot were only 30" exposures while the others with hotspots were 60" exposures.

Could these be the problems?

Every lens performs better when its stopped down but the lens is prime here to the fault.

I can see the hotspot on all you images (via your link) Its not always a red spot, its just a central lightness over the rest.

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Feb 2007 at 14:29

Mohain said:
Cool first efforts Col. As has been said before, experiment a little with different settings to see what you prefer. I think Brads IR action is an oft used action for IR but it looks like you might already have this.

Thanks I will try this out, I don't have any actions yet, I did every conversion from scratch.. took quite some time I might add

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Feb 2007 at 14:34

basic actions for a quick fix are:
auto levels. auto color (dependant on your wb) blue/red channel swap.
overall sharpen.

Mohain · 15 Feb 2007 at 14:39

Colin_da_Killer said:
Thanks I will try this out, I don't have any actions yet, I did every conversion from scratch.. took quite some time I might add

The Brads IR action is OK but you will need to tweek the levels after. Can also use the channel mixer to swap the blue/red channels. Or dupe the layer, invert it and set blend mode to color. All pretty quick ways to get to where you roughly want to be before more tweakage.

EDIT: Repeating F11!