Dabbling with infrared.

Tonks · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:34

Greengiant I hope you don't mind but I couldn't resist a tinker with your glorious shot, looks good in B&W it does

Shoei · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:54

Would love to have a play with IR filters, but the D80 is supposed to be pretty poor with regards IR photography.

Messiah Khan · 10 Jul 2007 at 16:40

Shoei said:
Would love to have a play with IR filters, but the D80 is supposed to be pretty poor with regards IR photography.

Im not sure how different they are in terms of the hotmirror, but ive got a D40X which is fine for IR. AFAIK Canon are worse for IR then Nikon, and Fstop11 seems to get on alright with his Canon. It might be worth getting hold of a cheapish IR filter and see how you get on.

Tonks · 10 Jul 2007 at 16:48

Shoei said:
Would love to have a play with IR filters, but the D80 is supposed to be pretty poor with regards IR photography.

It's certainly doable but I find exposures of 15 -30 seconds are quite the norm with my D80 look in this thread for a shot taken with a D80...

Shoei · 10 Jul 2007 at 17:40

Tonks said:
It's certainly doable but I find exposures of 15 -30 seconds are quite the norm with my D80 look in this thread for a shot taken with a D80...

magic, shall the CC a bit more and get hold of an IR filter.

greengiant · 10 Jul 2007 at 18:09

Tonks said:
Greengiant I hope you don't mind but I couldn't resist a tinker with your glorious shot, looks good in B&W it does

Looks good. The church I had still to post pro. Could you give an idea of what steps you did to get the image above?

cheers

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 10 Jul 2007 at 18:18

I haven't had chance to see the D80 take on IR. one of my best mates has it so I should really give it a go.

The Canons have the stronger repelling low pass filter and exifs are to be expected as:

ISO200
F8
10 / 60 seconds

It really does depend when and where you shoot.

I would be shocked if a D80 wasn't good at infrared. A D70 Almost tempted me to get a second system.

I think Hoodi was telling how much different the D200 and the D70 are at infrared. I'm sure he would be happy to assist over at Talk

Tonks · 10 Jul 2007 at 18:52

greengiant said:
Looks good. The church I had still to post pro. Could you give an idea of what steps you did to get the image above?

cheers

I basically used the workflow as described by Panzerbjorn:

'Auto levels, contrast and colour

Channel mixer: select Red from the drop down and change the Red to 0 and the Blue to 100 then select Blue from the drop down and change Red to 100 and Blue to 0

Hue/Saturation: Select Master from the drop down and change the Hue to 40

Curves: Play around with this but I settled for Input 185 Output 200

Auto levels, contrast and colour again.

Noise reduction and USM and you're done'

I also used this B&W action. Then some burning and dodging to darken the sky and the darker parts of the church and lighten the foliage. Tweaked with curves and finally some unsharp mask- a bit too much perhaps... there is a lot of potential in your shot and someone with more time and skill than me could make it int a stunning shot

Shoei · 10 Jul 2007 at 18:53

Found both Kood screw fit IR filters and some Cokin P mount IR filters.
Will probably go for the P mount IR filter.

Messiah Khan · 10 Jul 2007 at 18:55

Shoei said:
Found both Kood screw fit IR filters and some Cokin P mount IR filters.
Will probably go for the P mount IR filter.

Ive heard not so good things about slot in IR filters. Apparently they tend to 'leak' too much visible light in round the edges.

GeX · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:12

sean said:
I think when that happens you're supposed to take a photo of something which would appear "white" in IR (a big patch of grass for example) then set your white balance off that and possibly swap the red and blue channels in post-processing.

But I wouldn't know.. I've not actually tried it yet

okies. i've setup a custom white balance, and this is the results.

1> 0.250s, f/4.5. Then auto levels.

2> 4.000s, f/22.0, Then auto levels.

3> 0.040s, f/3.8. Auto levels and slight crop.

i've not yet attempted any further processing. wanted to show what the imgaes look like pretty much right off a D50. Hoya H72 IR filter, and i left the UV filter on there too.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:22

Heres some quick further processing

Hope you don't mind.

Johnny

GeX · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:24

can you post what you did there, i'm still very new to using photoshop and often see images that have had processing done but cannot figure out what was done, and how.

also, might help others learn

edit: it changed again, and nope - don't mind at all

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:28

Well I adjusted its curves (that takes a learning curve to understsand)
used hue/saturation tools to alter tones and give contrast to particular channels.
Dodge burn tools
sponge for saturation at 20%

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:34

greengiant said:
Managed to get hold of a cheap Kood IR filter from the bay, so I've had a little play with it on my K100D with 18-55mm kit lens:

Also had a quick play with yours.
I hope no one is offended by my taking on some further processing its just I work a lot with Infrared and personally feel I know how to bring out the best in an image. This is a very beautiful Image greengiant.

GeX · 11 Jul 2007 at 16:39

Fstop11 said:
Well I adjusted its curves (that takes a learning curve to understsand)
used hue/saturation tools to alter tones and give contrast to particular channels.
Dodge burn tools
sponge for saturation at 20%

okies. that is all stuff i've been working with before, i just need to play about a lot more, espeically with IR.

thanks

SidewinderINC · 11 Jul 2007 at 20:34

Fstop11, seeing the before and after of your processing is truly amazing - and seeing the results possible with IR makes me want to get into it, but alas affording the equipment is something i cant do right now

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 11 Jul 2007 at 21:03

Really all you need is a IR filter (£30ish)
Some compacts can shoot infrared if you combine the filter with their onboard night mode.

Most digital SLRs make a great job of Infrared as long as you are willing to use a tripod with your shots.

I really do not process heavily. Once your white balance is set in camera and your exposure is correct its quite a repetitive process for the rest of it usually only 5 or so steps and they are saved as a custom Photoshop action.

SidewinderINC · 11 Jul 2007 at 21:34

i've just bought a Fuji F31fd but there is no facility to attach filters onto it

however my old Canon A75 can have filters, but its a bit old.

ive seen Hoya IR filters on the bay for £10 ish, are these ones any good?

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 11 Jul 2007 at 21:36

SidewinderINC said:
i've just bought a Fuji F31fd but there is no facility to attach filters onto it
however my old Canon A75 can have filters, but its a bit old.

ive seen Hoya IR filters on the bay for £10 ish, are these ones any good?

Hoya R72 is the one you need.