Lessons Learned in Infrared Digital Photography
Here I will give you tips and hints on how to make your Infrared Photography stunning. Mostly you will see that they are simple common sense concepts that given time and practice you would derive on your own. This area will grow every day and will cover everything from Composition to the Physics of IR Photography!
The White Balance is one of your more important controls/settings that you can adjust on your Infrared Digital Camera system. You should ALWAYS do a custom white balance for the system. I know that everyone says that it can be changed in Photoshop, BUT if properly setup in camera you will get accurate Histograms!
To do this, take a picture of GREEN grass in normal light that fills the view finder,then tell your camera to use this image for the custom white balance. This will then force the camera to show the images taken in B&W rather than RED and allow for an ACCURATE Histogram display which is very important when judging the exposure.
To do this, take a picture of GREEN grass in normal light that fills the view finder,then tell your camera to use this image for the custom white balance. This will then force the camera to show the images taken in B&W rather than RED and allow for an ACCURATE Histogram display which is very important when judging the exposure.
Digital Infrared Camera Systems generate low contrast images. This is a problem in that you have to adjust the contrast up in Photoshop which adds noise in the dark areas of the image. There are several ways to overcome this issue!
The most important is to insure that your EXPOSURE is dead on! This more than anything else will help control low contrast noise. The 2nd thing that you can do is to ALWAYS add a POLARIZER filter to your Infrared System. It will have the same basic function as in color photography in that it will control glare and saturate colors. BUT, more importantly it will increase IN CAMERA CONTRAST which will reduce the noise in post processing! I ALWAYS use this filter on all of my Infrared cameras and lenses! Yes, you can buy a filter adapter for most of the point and shoot digital cameras on the market!
The most important is to insure that your EXPOSURE is dead on! This more than anything else will help control low contrast noise. The 2nd thing that you can do is to ALWAYS add a POLARIZER filter to your Infrared System. It will have the same basic function as in color photography in that it will control glare and saturate colors. BUT, more importantly it will increase IN CAMERA CONTRAST which will reduce the noise in post processing! I ALWAYS use this filter on all of my Infrared cameras and lenses! Yes, you can buy a filter adapter for most of the point and shoot digital cameras on the market!
Composition Factors for STUNNING Infrared Images!
Infrared Photography has the ability to be the most stunning, ethereal work you will ever see! So you have to ask yourself why then is most of the work seen on the WEB so ordinary? The hard truth of the matter is that most photographers have not developed the ability to visualize their scene before they ever pick up their camera! Lets face it, photography is an ART and like any other art it demands time to develop you vision and photographic skills to the level that it begins to become pleasing!
Take a look around the web galleries of Infrared Photographers. What do you see? More importantly, what do you like? The "like" question is perhaps the more important consideration as you learn to define your own personal style! After all, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"! My own trip in developing my visual style has taken 43 years... A lifetime for most. I have learned what pleases me and can tell you that it is not always true for others who view my work! I am going to share some of the lessons that I have learned over the years that apply both to color and Infrared, but REALLY affect Infrared.
First and foremost, you as the photographer MUST fully understand what makes Infrared work. Remember, that living green things will show up as white. This can be used to create the ethereal look and feel for your Infrared work and should be a major consideration in your composition when you can use it! Consider an Infrared image of a shrimp boat on the water. By itself, the boat, water and reflections can and will create a great Infrared image, but if you can frame the image with tree branches covered in leaves you will add a measure of beauty to the image which will take an ordinary image and make it a great one!
Another important consideration is the sky! A blue sky looks great in color but terrible in Infrared! Having clouds or even an overcast sky will allow the Infrared photographer to add a touch of excitement to his or her image that will scream STUNNING! It is strange how a Infrared camera will pick up graphic changes in contrast and details in a overcast sky that your eyes just cannot see! Take advantage of this!
Water and reflections will push a boring image into the realm of world class! Try to always add this component to your composition and you will never be sorry. I once took an image of a sidewalk covered by Pin Oaks in Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island, SC and while I liked the image it was just missing something. Every time I went to the gardens I would revisit the scene and re-photograph it only to be just as disappointed. Finally I visited after a heavy rain storm to find the sidewalk flooded with an inch of water and the creative light went on in my head! The image created this day was one that will haunt me forever with the soft white oaks over a plain sidewalk FLOODED WITH WATER generating one of the most STUNNING & ETHEREAL images that I have ever made! Here is the reason: WATER TURNS BLACK in Infrared but REFLECTS Infrared energy of the scene surrounding it!
Infrared Photography has the ability to be the most stunning, ethereal work you will ever see! So you have to ask yourself why then is most of the work seen on the WEB so ordinary? The hard truth of the matter is that most photographers have not developed the ability to visualize their scene before they ever pick up their camera! Lets face it, photography is an ART and like any other art it demands time to develop you vision and photographic skills to the level that it begins to become pleasing!
Take a look around the web galleries of Infrared Photographers. What do you see? More importantly, what do you like? The "like" question is perhaps the more important consideration as you learn to define your own personal style! After all, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"! My own trip in developing my visual style has taken 43 years... A lifetime for most. I have learned what pleases me and can tell you that it is not always true for others who view my work! I am going to share some of the lessons that I have learned over the years that apply both to color and Infrared, but REALLY affect Infrared.
First and foremost, you as the photographer MUST fully understand what makes Infrared work. Remember, that living green things will show up as white. This can be used to create the ethereal look and feel for your Infrared work and should be a major consideration in your composition when you can use it! Consider an Infrared image of a shrimp boat on the water. By itself, the boat, water and reflections can and will create a great Infrared image, but if you can frame the image with tree branches covered in leaves you will add a measure of beauty to the image which will take an ordinary image and make it a great one!
Another important consideration is the sky! A blue sky looks great in color but terrible in Infrared! Having clouds or even an overcast sky will allow the Infrared photographer to add a touch of excitement to his or her image that will scream STUNNING! It is strange how a Infrared camera will pick up graphic changes in contrast and details in a overcast sky that your eyes just cannot see! Take advantage of this!
Water and reflections will push a boring image into the realm of world class! Try to always add this component to your composition and you will never be sorry. I once took an image of a sidewalk covered by Pin Oaks in Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island, SC and while I liked the image it was just missing something. Every time I went to the gardens I would revisit the scene and re-photograph it only to be just as disappointed. Finally I visited after a heavy rain storm to find the sidewalk flooded with an inch of water and the creative light went on in my head! The image created this day was one that will haunt me forever with the soft white oaks over a plain sidewalk FLOODED WITH WATER generating one of the most STUNNING & ETHEREAL images that I have ever made! Here is the reason: WATER TURNS BLACK in Infrared but REFLECTS Infrared energy of the scene surrounding it!
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OK, Its time for HELP! Go to: http://irphotocom.proboards49.com/index.cgi and JOIN! This is a support forum for Infrared Photographers and I highly recommend it! This is one of the best forums for Digital Infrared Photographers on the WEB.
Tropical Storm Fran has enforced a lesson on composition that I wish to share with you all! Above we talked about the 3 elements that make up good Infrared composition, sky, leaves and water. What do you get with hurricanes? That's right, SKY! And YES the skies up until today have been amazing! So given a fab sky, beach (so -so in IR) and water (ocean) you can generate some very powerful Infrared Images that are really studies of clouds. BUT... You really need to add a polarizer to your lens to take advantage of these great sky images (as well as increasing in camera contrast as discussed above..) Remember to adjust your filter for max contrast in the clouds and go from there! Try to include Sea Oats, Sky and Ocean for the Infrared Holy Trilogy and you will not loose!
LDP, or MaxMax.com has introduced a new Infrared Filter called the XDP. This is an incredible filter in that it is a DUAL PASS BAND type of filter. This means that it allows 2 windows of light to pass thru the filter.
For my purposes the 2nd band is what I am interested in. I talked to Dan, the owner of LDP today to try to get the lowdown on this filter. He was rather cryptic about the specs, in fact you cannot get them due to industrial secrets! What he did share is that it has 2 passbands.
One at about 750nm to 850nm.
One in the mid 400s.
The reason for this is to give a filter that will allow deep Infrared with the RGB channels being the same from the 750-850 section yet allow more of the deep blue in the 400 area so that you can have both GREAT B&W Infrared and still have enough blue from the 400 band to allow good Faux processing! I can tell you first hand that this is a GREAT filter!
I am using it on the lens of an IR ONLY Canon G9 set at 715nm which means that the LOWEST pass is 715nm and the Highest is 850nm. So the blue passband is useless to me because the 715 blocks it. BUT the 750-850 band gives AMAZING images!
OK, what this really means is this:
If you have a CONVERTED Infrared camera, the lowest light your camera will see is whatever the value of the installed INTERNAL filter is in nm. By placing this new XDP filter on the LENS of your camera you are effectively limiting the UPPER passed light in the IR area will be. In this case the XDP has a passband of 750nm to 850nm. So if your camera has a 715nm internal filter and the XDP on the lens then it can effectively see from 715nm to 850nm. But the 750nm to 850nm creates a very tight histogram that is the same on all 3 color channels and creates a high contrast B&W Infrared image.
Just using the internal 715nm filter generates the same type of exposure that you could expect in a normal color camera in that you can expect exposures to be about the same. The addition of the XDP will cost you 2 to 3 stops of usable light and you will notice longer shutter times in order to have the same exposures. BUT metering and focus all work the same. On the Canon G9 the only change you notice besides the Deep B&W Infrared images on the LCD is the longer shutter speeds! I highly recommend this filter four you to experiment with. Remember on a Point & Shoot camera it will have no affect on the way you take your images. If you use it on a SLR then you will loose the ability to focus and compose your image unless you are using one of the new SLR's that have a live view!
This entire discussion highlights one area that we should all be thinking about... Experimentation and finding new ways to change the mood & look of our Infrared Camera!
For my purposes the 2nd band is what I am interested in. I talked to Dan, the owner of LDP today to try to get the lowdown on this filter. He was rather cryptic about the specs, in fact you cannot get them due to industrial secrets! What he did share is that it has 2 passbands.
One at about 750nm to 850nm.
One in the mid 400s.
The reason for this is to give a filter that will allow deep Infrared with the RGB channels being the same from the 750-850 section yet allow more of the deep blue in the 400 area so that you can have both GREAT B&W Infrared and still have enough blue from the 400 band to allow good Faux processing! I can tell you first hand that this is a GREAT filter!
I am using it on the lens of an IR ONLY Canon G9 set at 715nm which means that the LOWEST pass is 715nm and the Highest is 850nm. So the blue passband is useless to me because the 715 blocks it. BUT the 750-850 band gives AMAZING images!
OK, what this really means is this:
If you have a CONVERTED Infrared camera, the lowest light your camera will see is whatever the value of the installed INTERNAL filter is in nm. By placing this new XDP filter on the LENS of your camera you are effectively limiting the UPPER passed light in the IR area will be. In this case the XDP has a passband of 750nm to 850nm. So if your camera has a 715nm internal filter and the XDP on the lens then it can effectively see from 715nm to 850nm. But the 750nm to 850nm creates a very tight histogram that is the same on all 3 color channels and creates a high contrast B&W Infrared image.
Just using the internal 715nm filter generates the same type of exposure that you could expect in a normal color camera in that you can expect exposures to be about the same. The addition of the XDP will cost you 2 to 3 stops of usable light and you will notice longer shutter times in order to have the same exposures. BUT metering and focus all work the same. On the Canon G9 the only change you notice besides the Deep B&W Infrared images on the LCD is the longer shutter speeds! I highly recommend this filter four you to experiment with. Remember on a Point & Shoot camera it will have no affect on the way you take your images. If you use it on a SLR then you will loose the ability to focus and compose your image unless you are using one of the new SLR's that have a live view!
This entire discussion highlights one area that we should all be thinking about... Experimentation and finding new ways to change the mood & look of our Infrared Camera!
Canon G9 IR ONLY (715nm) with LDP's XDP IR Filter on the lens. Sandy Island Landing with the Sandy Island School Boat. Pawleys Island, SC
Canon G9 IR ONLY (715nm) with LDP's XDP IR Filter on the lens. Brookgreen Gardens Tour Dock, Pawleys Island, SC.
Using a Second Infrared Filter for Camera Mood Changes