Just got my first IR filter...

mcwildcard

mcwildcard

mcwildcard

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Decided to grab a cheap Kood R72 to start off with, if I get to grips with IR, then I'll likely fork out for a Hoya, but this will do in the meantime.
I'm going to take it out at the weekend, I'm visiting my mate in a leafy area of Hemel Hempstead, so should get the chance to at least test it all out.
I mucked about with it a bit yesterday, but was only in my room, which is poorly lit (it was dark outside), so I could only get a quick go at setting the white balance, which proved to be pretty easy, although the low level of artificial light meant I had to go to 30sec exposures at full aperture for any sort of decent image in the end.
I assume that proper sunlight will afford a much higher level of IR for me to work with, but what sort of rough exposure times will I be looking at?
Also, how do I go about focusing?
I just get a black (well, v dark red!) blank image on the viewfinder of my Fuji S9600 with the filter on, should I be able to see a bit better when I'm working in sunlight?

Next purchase will obviously have to be a tripod, which I currently dont have, so that'll be rather limiting!
Any tips on a cheap, compact one to get me started?
 
mcwildcard said:
Decided to grab a cheap Kood R72 to start off with, if I get to grips with IR, then I'll likely fork out for a Hoya, but this will do in the meantime.
I'm going to take it out at the weekend, I'm visiting my mate in a leafy area of Hemel Hempstead, so should get the chance to at least test it all out.
I mucked about with it a bit yesterday, but was only in my room, which is poorly lit (it was dark outside), so I could only get a quick go at setting the white balance, which proved to be pretty easy, although the low level of artificial light meant I had to go to 30sec exposures at full aperture for any sort of decent image in the end.
I assume that proper sunlight will afford a much higher level of IR for me to work with, but what sort of rough exposure times will I be looking at?
Also, how do I go about focusing?
I just get a black (well, v dark red!) blank image on the viewfinder of my Fuji S9600 with the filter on, should I be able to see a bit better when I'm working in sunlight?

Next purchase will obviously have to be a tripod, which I currently dont have, so that'll be rather limiting!
Any tips on a cheap, compact one to get me started?
Click to expand...

Read up about hyperfocal distance for the focussing, I think that will help (someone correct me if I am wrong)

Or you could just focus with the filter off, and then place it back on when focussed. As for exposure times to expect, I can't help with that one.

If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for this?
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Read up about hyperfocal distance for the focussing, I think that will help (someone correct me if I am wrong)

Or you could just focus with the filter off, and then place it back on when focussed. As for exposure times to expect, I can't help with that one.

If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for this?
Click to expand...
The filter?
It cost just over £15inc from an auction site (58mm).
 
i've not used an IR filter on anything other than my D50. but i've been focusing with the filter off, then switching the lens back to AF (to lock the drive so it doesnt move when i attach the filter) and then checking what the camera reackons for exposure time, switching to manual and then adding a bit to what it suggested.

on my last thread, exposure times varied from 4 to 30 seconds.

you should see better results in sunlight than you would at night in your room.
 
Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't you at least expect no image at night? where else would the IR be coming from if the sun was set ;)
 
Ended up being a bit of a bust, didn't take many pics, most of them are blurry and useless, composition is non-existent because I was relying on finding sturdy surfaces to rest the camera on, which limited me massively.
Lesson 1 learnt - I desperately need a tripod!

There's a couple pics I'll put up here tomorrow, but they should be seen purely as test shots!
 
startrek2 said:
some outstanding shots here

http://www.pbase.com/zylen/infrared not intended for any to buy from her just she catches what IR is about i think
Click to expand...

ah yes her. One of the reasons I got into infrared digital. Stumbled across her some years ago now.

You will find that those images are so nice but they were captured on a
Minolta DiMAGE 7 p&s. A great cameara for infrared work.
 
Okay, here's the only stuff which was passable...

dscf0477pt4.jpg


dscf0489om2.jpg


One thing that's concerning me is that there seems to be a patch of overexposure in the middle of a lot of the pictures, it's most noticable in this cast off...

dscf0483wo6.jpg


It also appears slightly in the first pic above :confused:
Any ideas what might be causing it?
 
Lens flare is shown very badly when using IR filters. Different lenses do this to different amounts though cheaper lenses are generally better (e.g. the special coatings etc put on Canon L glass often make them pretty poor). As you can't change the lens on that camera, there's not an awful lot you can do about it really apart from maybe trying to vary your settings to minimise it.

All of these are quite underexposed, though and the white balances are quite off. As you said above, a tripod the way forward so that you can get some longer exposures.
 
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mcwildcard said:
Is there any specific settings I should be looking at changing to try and minimise the flare?
Click to expand...
These were all taken pretty wide open, as without a tripod, I'm guessing you were trying to keep the shutter times down as much as possible.

It's always awkward focussing when doing IR and a good way of doing it is with hyperfocal distances. This is better with smaller apertures, which is why nothing really appears to be focussed in your images. So try shooting at and above f/11 but basically just play around to see what gives you the best results. Shooting at smaller apertures might also help to get rid of some of the flare too.
 
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A.N.Other said:
These were all taken pretty wide open, as without a tripod, I'm guessing you were trying to keep the shutter times down as much as possible.

It's always awkward focussing when doing IR and a good way of doing it is with hyperfocal distances. This is better with smaller apertures, which is why nothing really appears to be focussed in your images. So try shooting at and above f/11 but basically just play around to see what gives you the best results. Shooting at smaller apertures might also help to get rid of some of the flare too.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the aperture was as wide open as I could get it in all the shots, once I've sorted a tripod I'll have a go at f/11 (which is as high as my camera goes) and see how that pans out.
What is it that causes the flaring?
 
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