IR filters

LongLensPhotography

LongLensPhotography

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LongLensPhotography
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I have some plans to take a few odd and fancy looking landscapes, which means looking at things in IR light :D

It will be a fairly limited project so IR conversion is absolutely out of question.
So this will have to be done with a standard 1DsII 24-70mm package.

I know there are filters like Hoya R72, which block out any light under 720nm. This sounds great, and I am aware it will also double up as a 10-stopper (which is actually a bonus!). I hope 1DsII (or 1DIII) won't have any issues taking a decent 2-3min IR exposure in daylight?

Again, this is a fun project so how about ebay alternatives? How good is Haida filter for example or would you recommend something else? Examples would be welcome.
 
daugirdas said:
I know there are filters like Hoya R72, which block out any light under 720nm. This sounds great, and I am aware it will also double up as a 10-stopper (which is actually a bonus!). I hope 1DsII (or 1DIII) won't have any issues taking a decent 2-3min IR exposure in daylight?
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More like a 4 stopper, a 720 nm IR filter has a filter factor of about 16 so 4 stops absorbed. Just buy a filter from ebay and have a go - theres no big loss if the filter is not quite up to spec as you can get them very cheaply, have some fun!
 
ebay sourced Neewer filter here, 720nm (not sure if that's half transmission or full cut off) and it's more than 10 stops on 4/3 sensors. Hoya R72 is generally regarded as 5 stops, how well that fares coupled with a digital camera AA filter though...
 
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Thanks everyone. I have just placed an order for Haida filter. I hope it turns out better than my recent ebay-cheapo-specials.

I will post a very brief review once I get a chance to shoot a few landscapes.
 
markmullen said:
Me too, have been looking to do some IR work.
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No worries, if it's here before Sunday I'll try something in Dorset, or failing that the good old Clifton Bridge. And it seems it could be camera dependent (different AA/UV/IR filters, etc).
 
Haida filter is here. In short, it is not multicoated (surprise, surprise!), but the frame is of fairly high quality and fairly slim.

Once on the camera it completely blackens out the viewfinder even in a very bright daylight; live view doesn't work either. Metering is way off so it is all completely manual. It is OK for some very occasional shot which was my aim.

I could get reasonable exposures at 1/5s ISO 3200 f/2.8 (1DsII+24-70) in very bright light. W/o filter the meter reads 1/1600s ISO 100 f/2.8. That is 40 stops if my maths is right!

Proper samples are hopefully coming in the next couple of days. Stay tuned.
 
What was the wavelength of the filter?

Coatings don't matter in IR land, even your lens' won't have any effect.
 
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arad85 said:
13 1/3ish... 8 1/3 from the shutter speed, 5 from the ISO. They don't multiply ;)
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Sorry my bad.

Alan Clogwyn said:
What was the wavelength of the filter?

Coatings don't matter in IR land, even your lens' won't have any effect.
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720nm, it lets in just a trace of deep red I can see through the VF if I look carefully.
 
If you point it at a fire or old fashioned bulb you'll be able to see them.

Depending how good Canon AF is you should be able to use that with the filter in place.
 
Remember to do a custom white balance, I find it helps give an idea of how it will look instead if trying to guess from a pure red image while in camera.
 
The easiest way is to do it the old fashioned way, meter with the filter off and then add on 4 or 5 stops for the filter factor, focus manually and use a small aperture such as F8 to cover the focus difference between visible and IR light (or if your lens has a distance scale and IR mark then focus normally and then adjust the focus until the IR mark is where the lens was focused). Add the filter back on and then press the shutter. That should be a good starting point.
 
I've been tinkering with IR lately, and various cameras all react in different ways. So far, the best (ie: the one that lets me do the channel swapping candy floss tree effect) is the little Canon compact.

Nikon D40 is not bad. Nikon D80 is okay, but only about a quarter the sensitivity of the D40.
The D7000 is horrendous. So far, no amount of custom white balancing or RAW processing has gotten anything even slightly pleasant to look at.
 
HMansfield said:
I've been tinkering with IR lately, and various cameras all react in different ways. So far, the best (ie: the one that lets me do the channel swapping candy floss tree effect) is the little Canon compact.

Nikon D40 is not bad. Nikon D80 is okay, but only about a quarter the sensitivity of the D40.
The D7000 is horrendous. So far, no amount of custom white balancing or RAW processing has gotten anything even slightly pleasant to look at.
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Add to that: All 4 cameras I've tried IR on have given equal sensitivity but the results have always been different. Olympus E520 gave the classic red/blue images which looked great channel swapped with white balance simply set to 2100K, no messing. Could be focussed by camera AF or live view.

Panasonic GH1 the white balance was impossible to set, but gave good monochrome results (lots of long exposure noise though) and difficult to AF with it being contrast detect.

Panasonic LX5 behaves a lot better, can get a white balance set up that looks plausible. similar AF issues as GH1, though not so bad because the lens is a lot faster!

Fuji S3 Pro, can't set a custom white balance in camera but it has the best white balance tolerance of any digicam I've used, using raw dropper on foliage always gives the same results of red and green which looks fantastic. Camera AF works but it's not very sophisticated.
 
Always wanted an R72 myself (77mm) which isn't cheap but was always concerned about hot spotting. Good luck with this project Tomas, Mia Lewis has some great IR shots on Flickr.
 
Digifrog said:
Always wanted an R72 myself (77mm) which isn't cheap but was always concerned about hot spotting. Good luck with this project Tomas, Mia Lewis has some great IR shots on Flickr.
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It's funny that you mentioned hot spots. 17-40mm faiL proved to be unusable under ~30mm (or maybe it didn't like f/13) for that reason. Next attempt will be using 24-70. If that fails, I'm afraid I will have to give up.
 
Some from the last weekend using 17-40. The hotspot is somewhat masked by the subjects, but was really visible in the others.
p641073987-4.jpg


p997817757-4.jpg


For comparison BW conversion of a normal photo
p821213414-4.jpg

This is very close to me, without the softness, glow and other side effects.

I will try false colour IR with the proper samples.
 
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