Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Infrared Digital Photography with an R72 Filter


Botanic Gardens in IR
Originally uploaded by jezza323
This shot is from me playing around with an IR 720nm filter. This type of filter blocks all light below the 720nm wavelength. This means some reds, and infrared are the only light which can pass through. By using 1 of these filters on your camera, you will get some interesting results.

Unfortunately most modern cameras have an IR reduction filter mounted to the front of the sensor, which means that blocking visible light will result in very long exposures being required. This particular shot was taken in broad daylight, at f11.0, ISO 200 and required a 30 second shutter speed! 30 secs in broad daylight is quite a lot. A typical exposure in this situation would be around about 1/400 sec!

The main features of IR photography are black skies, and white leaves on trees and grass. This results in cool contrasty shots where things are just a little different to the norm.

2 comments:

  1. Jezza, Is this a screw on filter or a filter in PP?

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  2. this is with a screw on filter, hoya make them, they are called R72 filters.

    you can also get cheaper knock offs, which I used for this one, but i now have the hoya, and the IQ is a bit better, and the IR effect a bit stronger with it.

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