As spring has sprung with its fresh bright and vibrant greens it is time to get out those IR filters and IR cameras. Now that may not be the first thing you think of with spring coming on, but the rich greens of spring do provide great material for those of you who love IR photography. The images here were captured with my Nikon D70 that I had converted to IR last year. Both images were processed using SilverEfx Pro for the B&W conversion.
I have repeated the first image at the end of the blog where I have added an IR glow using the Glamour Glow filter in Nik’s ColorEfx Pro software package. This glow is more typical of the IR films used previously.
If you haven’t tried out IR photography the lower cost way to try it out is using an IR filter. It is more difficult to use (can’t see through the lens once the filter is on) but it will only cost you $80-100 for a good filter. The filter will require very long exposures (tripod required) because the camera’s sensor has an IR blocking filter still in place.
A converted camera is much easier to use, but cost you $250-350 depending on the camera and conversion house. With the camera conversion you can see what are shooting through the lens and the exposures time are much shorter (closer to “normal”).
2 Comments
Great IR shots. I especially like the bottom one. I'm really interested in digital IR and have read several book on the subject but haven't taken the plunge. Did you ever try using IR filters or did you use the converted camera first? Nice work.
Hi Terry. Yes, I did start with an IR filter. I did a limited amount of shooting with it before moving onto the modified camera. It does work but was a bit tedious. You setup the shot on your tripod and then put the filter in place. Metering can be a bit tricky because so little light gets through but there are lots of photographers that do it that way. You also need to adjust your white balance to shift green to white (use your custom WB with the camera frame filled with a patch of green grass). The modified camera is just easier. Hope you try it out. It does result in neat images.
Thanks for the feedback on the IR image with glow. If you don't have Glamour Glow, I suspect reducing Clarity in Lightroom will result in a similar effect.