It’s time for a new technique review. This time I want to show you some infrared shots. It is fascinating to imagine, that we only see a very restricted wave-length of light. If we would see more, we could maybe see sound, radio waves or warming waves.
On way to discover a new world is infrared photography. Theses are photo that are made out of light that we can not see. Fascinating and in someway surreal. The photos looks like winter, but they have been captured in the middle of the summer.
I used here a infrared filter in front of the lens. I used a Hoya R72 filter that only let infrared light into the lens. Because most digital camera sensors filter infrared light out, you need to make a pretty long exposure (ca. 10 sec). Another problem is that you can not compose the photo, because the view finder is pitch black. But you can compose the shot before adapting a filter afterwards.
This is my first attempt to combine infrared pictures with HDR.
My experience with this is mixed.
– the IF pictures have a reduced color specturm. Thus, HDR has not so much to play with
– IF photos can have some weird color effects. This gets really hard to handle in the HDR process
– IF needs ca. 10sec per exposure. The HDR needs this three times. Thus, movement of clouds and leaves cannot be prevent.
In total, I like the result above. Although I must confess, that not everything was under my control. The blurry edges are from the inferior equipment I used (I needed to take the IF filter between two lenses). Although I didn’t had the color completely under control 😉
Here some further shots in infrared. Hope you like it.
Werner
Hi Werner, You have some lovely photos! Im interested to know how you got in with taking infrared shots with your Nikon D90 and Hoya R72 Filter as I have heard that the D90 isnt very good for Infra-red?
Hi Ian, I happy that you like what you see.
I can not add so much to the article. You can use the Nikon D90 with the Hoya R72, but you need long exposures (approx. 10″). This limits you in your possibilities.
The photos are nice (and can be a bis color distorted) and okay form the sharpness, but not crystal clear (download the original photo and you see what I mean).
The result is slightly moody, but with tonemapping and channel replacement you get results like mine above. Everytime, when I find a crystal clear IF picture in the web, it is most of the time a modified camera (One big step further to IF ;-). If you like it, that is what you can expect with this setting (nIkon & Hoya R72).
I plan to post a new IF technique within the next weeks. So please keep reading my blog !
Thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it!
When you say (approx. 10″) do you mean 10 minutes? or 10 seconds?
Thankyou, I will keep following your blog.
I mean 10 sec. 10 minutes might be interesting to try when it is pitch black
Cu
Werner