Posted: 9/30/2009 9:44:19 AM EDT
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Anyone here have much experience with a digital camera converted to shoot IR only? I recently had the filter on my 30D changed out and WOW is this a different way at looking at the world!! Here's a few shots I took in the last couple days just learning how to see...
Any pitfalls you've come across? Recommendations? Ideas? 1 
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Can you talk a little more about how you converted a digital camera to shoot in the IR spectrum? Sure, I had Life Pixel do the conversion. they remove the factory filter from over the sensor and replace it with one that blocks light below the IR level. Once that is done, the camera functions just like it did before, except now only IR light is transmitted to the sensor. Visible and UV light is blocked. However with this system I can still look through and compose with the viewfinder unlike when an IR filter is put over the lens. I can also use the built in light meter as a guesstimate for exposure. The light meter isn't totally accurate since it still sees visible light, so some Kentucky windage is still needed. Hope that helps, as I'm having a ton of fun with it!!! |
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There's a woman in my local camera club that does a lot of IR photography and she's got some IR HDR shots that are truly amazing to look at.
I've got an old Sony P&S that I've considered converting to IR only. I actually found instructions on the web to DIY this model to IR, just need to get some the IR-only filter to put over the sensor. |
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There's a woman in my local camera club that does a lot of IR photography and she's got some IR HDR shots that are truly amazing to look at. I've got an old Sony P&S that I've considered converting to IR only. I actually found instructions on the web to DIY this model to IR, just need to get some the IR-only filter to put over the sensor. Trying HDR images in IR could yeald some interesting results. I'll have to try that. Though the Dynamic range in most of the IR images I've tried, isn't all that large. Can you point me toward any examples of her work? |
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There's a woman in my local camera club that does a lot of IR photography and she's got some IR HDR shots that are truly amazing to look at. I've got an old Sony P&S that I've considered converting to IR only. I actually found instructions on the web to DIY this model to IR, just need to get some the IR-only filter to put over the sensor. Trying HDR images in IR could yeald some interesting results. I'll have to try that. Though the Dynamic range in most of the IR images I've tried, isn't all that large. Can you point me toward any examples of her work? Most of it has been prints. I'll see if I can find something online. |
| I've finally been inspired to order a set of IR pass filters. They'll hopefully work nicely on my Nikon N90s w/ Kodak digital back. It's highly sensitive to IR––it'll often blow the exposure completely, or at least give it a nuclear appearance if you don't put a hot mirror in front of the lens. |
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I've finally been inspired to order a set of IR pass filters. They'll hopefully work nicely on my Nikon N90s w/ Kodak digital back. It's highly sensitive to IRââit'll often blow the exposure completely, or at least give it a nuclear appearance if you don't put a hot mirror in front of the lens. Well that's effectively what they did to my camera, swap out the factory hot mirror in front of my sensor and put in its place one that only lets through IR. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I've finally been inspired to order a set of IR pass filters. They'll hopefully work nicely on my Nikon N90s w/ Kodak digital back. It's highly sensitive to IRââit'll often blow the exposure completely, or at least give it a nuclear appearance if you don't put a hot mirror in front of the lens. Well that's effectively what they did to my camera, swap out the factory hot mirror in front of my sensor and put in its place one that only lets through IR. Here's what I'm talking about: The first pair was taken pretty early in the day. The bottom one is without the hot mirror     When the sun is up, colors go nuclear. There's a lot of color noise that cleans up pretty easily. Got lazy here. No PP on any of these.   |
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I've finally been inspired to order a set of IR pass filters. They'll hopefully work nicely on my Nikon N90s w/ Kodak digital back. It's highly sensitive to IRââit'll often blow the exposure completely, or at least give it a nuclear appearance if you don't put a hot mirror in front of the lens. Well that's effectively what they did to my camera, swap out the factory hot mirror in front of my sensor and put in its place one that only lets through IR. Here's what I'm talking about: The first pair was taken pretty early in the day. The bottom one is without the hot mirror http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2427/3974160813_c6efa882b0_o.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2423/3974161281_edb19b73c1_o.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2433/3974925838_4e885010dd_o.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/3974925926_d56d5f1229_o.jpg When the sun is up, colors go nuclear. There's a lot of color noise that cleans up pretty easily. Got lazy here. No PP on any of these. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2462/3974200359_5d407d75e6_o.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3508/3974200157_45a8e6443c_o.jpg If you've removed the hot mirror completely and not put anything in its place, I think you're getting IR, visible and UV all at the same time. I could be wrong but I think that haze in a couple of the pictures is the UV getting through. But you're certainly right! Those colors do certainly stand out!! |
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Welcome to the IR club! I got a Canon 10D converted over to IR by Lifepixel a couple of years ago and I love it. At first I wondered how much I would use it, but it's quickly become my favorite camera. It's given me a whole new way to shoot the world.
The one thing that always amazes me about my full time IR is how sharp the pictures are. I can't give you an explanation as to why that is, but my shots with that camera come out ridiculously sharp and clear. It's also a camera that will show you every imperfection your lens may have. Push your glass too far and you'll see it in your images. I haven't tried doing any HD stuff, but that could be promising. One other thing... I used to shoot a lot with Tiffen's IR filters, but I had a lot of problems with 'hot spots'. Hot spots are this weird interaction between the IR filter and the coating used on Canon's lenses that left these blotches on the photos. I don't get any of that using the Lifepixel camera. Lens flare yes, but no hot spots. Here's a couple of shots from a recent trip to Antietam: 
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Quoted: Welcome to the IR club! I got a Canon 10D converted over to IR by Lifepixel a couple of years ago and I love it. At first I wondered how much I would use it, but it's quickly become my favorite camera. It's given me a whole new way to shoot the world. The one thing that always amazes me about my full time IR is how sharp the pictures are. I can't give you an explanation as to why that is, but my shots with that camera come out ridiculously sharp and clear. It's also a camera that will show you every imperfection your lens may have. Push your glass too far and you'll see it in your images. I haven't tried doing any HD stuff, but that could be promising. One other thing... I used to shoot a lot with Tiffen's IR filters, but I had a lot of problems with 'hot spots'. Hot spots are this weird interaction between the IR filter and the coating used on Canon's lenses that left these blotches on the photos. I don't get any of that using the Lifepixel camera. Lens flare yes, but no hot spots. Here's a couple of shots from a recent trip to Antietam: http://www.pbase.com/bowman1/image/117515905/large.jpg http://www.pbase.com/bowman1/image/117515906/large.jpg Superb!! My 720/850/950nm filter set ought to be arrive today. On the Nikon side, there's a guy (Bjorn somethingorotherâânaturphotog is the site name) that rates glass and IR performance is one of the aspects he looks at (hot spots, etc). |
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Ok, got the filter set and I'm getting images (yay!) I'm a little baffled as to how to begin processing them? They're BLUE (sometimes). The camera FWIW, has no digital controls. It writes a raw image to a card and that's it. ETA: OK, I'm getting it. There's no holds barred here. |
First decent attempt: Incidentally, the camera I was going to use didn't pan out. The WB was completely unmanageable, and it got insanely noisy, even though I was taking handheld exposures at ISO100. I was also getting really low contrast; I think from light leaking in from teh viewfinder and also I think the CMOS wasn't well masked at the edges. However, I took my cheap-o eBay 720/850/950nm filter set ("OEC" marked from an outfit in Txââ>~$50 for the set in 52mm), stuck them on my $200 Nikon D1xââ See the photo above (720nm, 18-55mm plastic fantastic kit lens, ISO100, ~1sec exposure at f/5.6). WB is preset at a well lit patch of grass. I'm finding I like Gimp a zillion times better than Adobe for false-color IR (WB with the dropper in UFRaw goes where you need it to whereas ACR has a limit of 2000K). I did a UFRaw WB dropper on a patch of tree, then a red<->blue channel swap in Gimp, and then Auto whitebalance (which tamed the resulting blue color cast). I don't like Gimp's noise management (is there a noise tool that I'm missing??). I see now on my monitor here at work that the brightness/contrast needs work, but overall, I'm pleased as punch. Here's what they look like staight off the camera with the green grass WB preset @ 720nm. I think I may have done some brightness/contrast, but that's the real color. 
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Here's a few more pics. They're from out Houston Suppressor shoot on Saturday.
LINK most of the IR stuff is on page 2 |
I have converted a bunch of Sony P32's  to IR. They make awsome trail cams. |