Picture Taking on Cadillac Mountain

[Jakov Minić]

Ole, the R60 filter in the 16/3.5 fish-eye cuts off light at approximately 600nm, so your 720nm filter will cut off all the light between those two wavelengths. Those would be most likely these interesting orange colors that Andrea B. masterfully displayed for us to enjoy

[Ole Gammelsæter]

Thanks Jakov.
So perhaps a new IR camera is needed then...

[Jakov Minić]

Either you have a broadband camera like Andrea B. and you decide yourself where you want to cut off light.
Or you do like I did and put in a filter that cuts off at 600nm.

However, if you cut off light in a broadband body, you will see the image in your viewfinder when cut off at 600nm, but if you decide to go the 720nm route or higher, you will be shooting "blind".
Another drawback with broadband is that you will always fiddle with filters, either gels (back slots of lenses) or screw in filters. Then you won't be able to use very lens that you have unless you buy filters with all thread sizes of your lenses.

The drawback of the 600nm is that it is not 100% IR, since you will capture the visible range from 600-720nm (but who cares, right, as long as the photo turns out good)

[Frank Fremerey]

These young women and the older ladies acting as their chaperones are from the Mennonite ethnic-religious group so they wear simple, longer dresses in pretty, soft colours and small white caps. This is referred to as dressing "plain". Mennonites are active in various peace and social issues. These women were very friendly & sweet, chatting & happy. They were taking a bus tour through Acadia National Park in Maine (USA). Almost everyone had a small point-and-shoot.

So we learn here where Lucas Arts sometimes get their inspiration!

[Andrea B.]

Ole, the 720 passes only a bit of Visible Red in addition to the IR, so the effect will not be as strong as with the setup I was using.

*******

The colours seen in my photo are also partly due to the particular in-camera white balance setting I was using in the Nikon D600.

But here are two Raw versions without white balance applied. So you can see that what was really recorded was mostly in the Red channel with a smaller contribution from the Green channel(s) and even less from the Blue channel.

These Raw composites were made in RawDigger. Love that app!!

Foto #1 :: Raw composite with autoscaling applied for 16-bit colour.
No gamma curve has been applied yet, so the Raw is very dark!
No white balance applied.

Foto #2 :: Raw composite with autoscaling and a midtone lift via gamma 2.2 curve.
Still unconverted really, so still rather dark.
But the only areas of underexposure are the sky in the upper right hand corner
and a bit of shadow on the rocks.
No white balance applied.

[Ole Gammelsæter]

Andrea, thanks for the info. I see now that I have a lot to learn about IR photography. I think white balance is something I will focus on first. I have just used the auto wb so far, and the results are not great. Will check that software you mention.

[Andrea B.]

Ole, what camera are you using? Some cameras are better at auto bw in Infrared than others. If you don't like the wb the camera has provided, it is easy to change in most raw converters to something more pleasing. Photo Ninja or Capture NX2, for example.

The photos I posted (in the first post) were made with a certain in-camera white balance setting, but those photos are not "white-balanced" because that in-camera setting was not made with the filter used to make the photos. I hope I said that correctly. 

Raw Digger is a nice app for analyzing raw file data, but it does not convert or edit photos.

[Ole Gammelsæter]

Andrea, I have an old D200, bought second hand for the purpose. I bought the filter from Lifepixel and did the conversion myself. I have used it too little, but have been reading a bit on the topic recently. The wb thing was a recommendation on the Lifepixel website. Make a custom wb setting using something green. The images straight from the camera with auto wb are very red, and I find it difficult to adjust i Photoshop or Aftershot. Most of the time I end up converting to B&W.

[Jørgen Ramskov]

Wow! What a surprising view, not at all what I expected when I clicked Straight out of Star wars.

[Andrea B.]

I'm happy you had a surprise, Jørgen !!

********

Ole, the D200 is very nice for IR. It was my main UV/IR camera for about 3 years.

Like other Nikon cameras, the D200 does not produce a good in-camera white balance
when used with IR filters (or UV filters either).
And, unfortunately, Photoshop/ACR also cannot produce a good white balance
on areas in a raw IR file (NEF).

You could try the free ViewNX from Nikon to complete the white balance on the raw D200 IR file.
Another app which can make an excellent "white-click" white balance is the converter Photo Ninja
which many of us UV/IR shooters use.

[James Fitzgerald]

Andrea, here is my wish list.

I would like to smush (not really a word) the two. The woman in blue?? with the motion is great in the first. The girls posing for their photograph in the second is awesome, then take out the two hikers on the left in the second and it's a perfect image. Not asking for much am I? :-) Easy to pick and choose after the fact eh?
But seriously, I think these are fine photographs.

[Andrea B.]

James, I had to try that!

You might also enjoy the 2nd image - not previously posted - showing everyone enjoying the results of all the picture taking. I think this one would only work as part of a series. It has less stand-aloneness.

I have had fun with these images.

[Erik Lund]

.......
Yes that is for sure flare in the sky. In this case with the "full-spectrum" D600 and the red filter on the Fishie, I thought it added to the unreal, Martian look.

I love the flare in this shot! Sorry I was so,,, vauge in my wording in the first post. 

And I envy your D600 I would love to get my hands on a Super color IR converted camera similar to it! Now I have to make do with and old D200 with Standard IR convertion...

My D300 UV died on me RIP..... 

[Gary]

Love the flare and the IR quality.