Christian Photographers Community

I've always wanted to shoot in the infrared spectrum, so finally I took my old Yashica D TLR out with the Hoya R72 opaque filter out. I've tried to learn about the quirks of shooting light you can't see or meter, and I think I have at least had a successful start. I expected the film to come out with no images, but both of my test rolls did well. I estimated exposure using the sunny 16 rule and rated my film (Efke IR820 in 120 roll format) around ISO 1.5 to 3, so exposures were very rough. Most of the successful exposures were around 3-5 seconds, though I did some tests in low evening light at 30 seconds and up to 3 minutes. All turned out images but the long exposures were blown out of course. I wanted to see how far I could overdo this film since people have reported it responds well to overexposure but ery poorly to underexposure.

Here are a few of the ones I liked, click for larger pic, and never mind the newton rings, I scanned the negs between glass and always have to fight newton rings, just part of being a cheapskate.

I am amazed that God even makes light that we do not see, and its beautiful! These were all taken at my favorite location near the house, Hall's Marsh. Spring is springing and the bleakness of the winter landscape is being overtaken by the lush vegetation. This place was heavily ravaged by hurricane Ike, so the winter just accentuated the destruction. This spring and summer will hide it, but it will be years before the snapped trees recover a full "tree-like" appearance.

You folks on CP are teaching me a lot about film digital and all to do with them.  These are good.  Not sure what loght you couldn't see.  Could you explain?  Willing to learn more.

Quote from: JudyB on April 04, 2009, 12:31:59 PM
You folks on CP are teaching me a lot about film digital and all to do with them.  These are good.  Not sure what loght you couldn't see.  Could you explain?  Willing to learn more.

Sure, the infrared spectrum of light is invisible to the naked eye, just like ultraviolet light on the other end of the spectrum. So Infrared film has an emulsion which is able to be exposed by this portion of the light spectrum. In order to see just the light that is infrared and not all the other light that we actually do see, I used a filter on my lense that allows only infrared light to pass through (a Hoya R72 opaque filter). Funny thing is the filter is nearly black, I can't see through it.

To compose the image, I was using a twin lens reflex, so it was not an issue - I could see the composition and focus through the viewing lens which did not have a filter on it, but had the filter on the actual taking lens. The challenge is thatyou can't use a light meter to set an exposure since infrared light doesn't get picked up by the light meter, so you meter the visible light and sort of extrapolate from there. I just used the Sunny 16 rule and wing it.

So what comes out on the film is a view of the scene that our eyes actually don't see. The light making the image is infrared light, which makes greens almost white and blues and violets really dark. Its a very different view. That tree in the pictures had vibrant rich green leaves, and since green reflects almost all of the infrared light hitting it, it appears white on IR film. IR film darkens skies and water very deeply as well. Its a different look at a scene, only capturing that light which is not seen. 

I really like how the long exposure softens the edges of the moving branches (it was windy) and imparts a watercolor feel to the foliage.

Thanks Scott!

I've never done any of this type of photography but I've seen it on the Cafe and enjoy looking at it.

Lovely images above.

Wow those are great!   
And thank you for sharing how you got the images.

This is beautiful stuff! I've always loved the IR photo's...   Someday I'd like to take some myself.

Thank you for the lesson!

Here are a few I took today down on a local creek. I love the way the greens read as white, I need to learn to control that so they aren't blown out completely but still vivid. The long exposures smooth water and make feathers out of moving foliage.

Way to go.  I have enjoyed learning how you do this.