Infrared Day

The Meadow - not in infrared. 

This is the area I'd like to be able to clip in some fashion. 

I just don't see that happening for me. At one time hubby would clip it with his tractor and brush hog.

In other places where I'd knocked down the burdock and sourdock, the motherwort is flourishing. 

I just can't win!

This scene is peaceful and calming.

It was too hot to do a lot of things outside. I usually clip the herds' manes by this time of the year, but I'm going to wait for my 'farm' help to do that this coming week. Charlie was nagging me for a walk so I headed up the driveway with just the Infrared camera.

Driveway: 665nm Filter

While hot days with a midday sun are horrible for most photography, those are the prime conditions for Infrared. Different filters with different wavelengths of light give different looks. 

Charlie was very unimpressed with the heat and hot sun. I thought I'd cool him off by heading into the forest...

Charlie in Infrared. Zombie Dog!

Infrared does some weird stuff to the eyes of people and dogs! They look really odd.

I gave Charlie a ride back to the ridge and started home.

This was neat in IR but I sure liked it in Sepia black and white better.

Neighobor's Vintage Tractor. 

He has put it up for sale.

I dropped the Hot Dog off at the house with hubby. They proceeded to watch really old strange Westerns on TV. I am not into blurry crappy movies at all. 

I grabbed a 720nm filter from my pile of ancient filters I had. I wanted to experiment and enjoy the summer day some more.

The herd under one of the boxelders they love to use for shade. I took this shot in Infrared with a 720nm filter which turns anything with chlorophyll in it basically white. 

Infrared is fun to experiment with. Thank goodnes
the mules didn't appear to be Zombies!

The 720nm filter will produce white leaves and blue sky
if you have a converted camera and use the green grass to set
your white balance.

Weird, right?

I got mesmerized by the backwards light of things. The dark greens I saw with my normal vision were bright white while the trunks and branches of the trees were dark and moody.

I got caught up in gazing up at the branches into the light. I shot a lot of photos more for the dark patterns of the branches than for anything else. 

Most of them didn't turn out as I 'saw' them in my mind, but it was fun to see the intricate patterns of the leaves and the branches.

Infrared offers so many possibilities in a creative way.

Locust tree budding out next
to our house. Those are leaves
not flowers.
The flowers will come in a few
days.

Yes, I do experiment a lot. It is the one thing I am passionate about. Monday was just a great day for it.

Color my world.

Oh not the song!

I recieved my 550nm filter on Monday and have trying it out in all sorts of lighting circumstances with the full spectrum conversion on my Olympus camera.

Infrared Photography let's me explore a different light spectrum than what the human eye can see.
Our eyes see green from the reflection of light. All of our colors are seen that way.
Okay, that is not a scientific explanation, but it is the best I can do in layman's terms.

Different spectrums allow the camera to see light reflected differently. The above shots appeal to the kid in me who still believes that a person should be able to color their art in any way they want to.
How fun is it that the leaves and grass turn out red?

Another question.
How will these look in the fall? As the chlorophyll is no longer produced in the trees, the absorption/refection of light will change too.

We see leaves as green because of the absorption by chlorophyll of the red and blue light wavelengths.

Okay. Enough of that.
If you want to read more about Infrared Light and Photography here is the Link:
Introduction to Infrared Photography.

All I know, is that I am having a blast.

Here is a shot with a 665nm filter.

665nm Filter unedited version

The light was poor and I took my white balance off from the dirt at my feet. A storm was coming in quickly so I had to work fast. I call this tree my Lolipop tree...well for obvious reasons. I thought it would be interesting to take the same shot with different filters.
Same shot now edited with what is called a Channel Swap of Red and Blue:

Last night I pulled out my Hoya R72 filter and put it on a different lens. White balance changed according to the grass at my feet.

I did a quick channel swap with this filter and got the shot above. I was really excited as to how the sky appeared behind the tree. To my normal eye it was blue but the clouds were not distinct like they are in IR.

I could have probably pulled some more yellow into the foliage of the trees, but I really like the way it turned out.

Then another shot with the 720nm filter on the Canon ELPH pocket camera that was converted. Same tree, morning light and fog.

The shot above is still one of my all time favorites. So otherworldly and dream like.

The twisted tree, yesterday with the Hoya R72. Again, the pale blue just appeals to me.

Then a few more experiments in the 550nm filter from my hike in the woods with Charlie and Sven. I found that in shady areas the shots would work for black and white conversion, but not very well for wild colors.

I did however have some luck with the elements, of sky, leaves, water, and grass.

For me, the wild colors are exciting and fun.

Oh I still do regular photography. I still love it.
But I have so much fun exploring the non visible spectrum.

This morning in fact I found out that little tiny Charlie could follow me on my bike.
I have to wait for him, but he sure was up for the pre dawn bike ride this morning! 
So many smells!

And for the parting shots.

IR 850nm. Used for stark black and white photography.

I took these on Monday night as the storm blew in.

Last word.
Many of my shots this week didn't turn out. I was simply experimenting with angles.
Can I shoot towards the sun? Not well.
Can I shoot at 90 degrees? Not so bad.
Shady? Good for black and white contrast.
Water reflections? Neat, but not always.
Overcast? Less color.
White Balance? Adjust often and know which color to balance off from. 665nm, 550nm balance off from grey, but you can use concrete or sometimes in my case..light colored dirt.
The higher ones? White Balance off from foliage.

What will happen in the winter? Ahhh, at least there are pine trees for the green!

IR Photography ~ No you shouldn't do that!

Well I decided to read instructions and try out some IR photography again.

IR is for bright sunny days with lots of blue skies and green leaves.

The colors are really quite different when using an Infrared Filter.

The above shot is from last summer on a hot day. The leaves are white, the blue sky is dark and the clouds are bright.
Heat reflection is what changes to white.

However I like to use the filter on items that aren't typical for IR photography.

Like animals.

A Gaggle of mules resting near the water tank. The exposure was 1/4 second at 1000 ISO with an IR filter on it.

Mica resting up near the equipment/training shed.

On these two shots, I let the pinkish colors come through. However, IR photography makes for fantastic black and white shots.

However the shutter speed is much slower so it isn't that great for shooting live subjects.
But I had to try.

Below.
WhoDunnit resting in the sun.

And then as it is meant to be used on a landscape.

The greens are white, anything that is warmed by the sun reflects a white color.

And there are always the long exposures that allow for interesting effects like this shot at Jersey Valley last fall. The sun lit up a small section of trees and the reflections were awesome.

But what the heck, if you don't experiment, you don't find new avenues of expression.

Processing IR with Topaz Adjust 5

[f7.1, ISO 100, 10" exposure]

I went for a walk yesterday and the fall colors were beginning their blaze of glory.
I started up my driveway and looked at the trees and the sunlight.
I wondered exactly what would happen if I used the Hoya Infrared R72 filter I'd gotten.

I processed the shot in Corel AfterShotPro and it really didn't look very impressive, it looked flat.  I could have edited the Histogram and gotten a bit more depth, but I thought I'd try Topaz Adjust 5.

That ended up being a bit more like it.  White foliage [which was actually yellow] and nice contrasts to the tree trunks and shadows.

I used some of the presets in the Toned portion of the plugin and played around with the sliders.

I was using an old camera and actually not following all the 'rules' out there on the 'how to' sites for using an IR filter.

I had to deal with a longer exposure to bring out the light and dark in the heavy canopied forest so there was some movement in the ferns and leaves in this shot.

[f5.6, ISO 100, 13"]

I used the 'pink' toned filter for this one and had to adjust the details.  I just felt it looked prettier with the fallen leaves a bit soft.

[f7.1, ISO 100, 4"]

With this driveway shot I went for the sunlit highlights.  Where the sun shined and reflected, the color was nearly white.

[f7.1, ISO 100, 5"]

I wanted a 'cool' effect for this shot.  Finally, I had white leaves and the sunlight coming across the tops of the trees in the distance.  The sunflowers in the garden with their drooping heads were bright white.  
The blobs in the distance are mules feeding.  
I don't think this is a fantastically composed shot, but I do like how it came out.

And my favorite of today on my trip to a county park was the following.

[f10, ISO 100, 10"]

I don't even mind the sun flare on the lens in this shot.

However this was spectacular in color and deserved to be shown off as such.

Fun with Infared

Getting a Hoya IR72 filter was something I considered for quite a while.  I was pretty sure though that I wouldn't be able to figure out the processing part of it.

With many hours of experimentation, I am getting some fun results.

Some are quite stunning and of course others are quite the flop.  The flops go into the digital trash bin and I learn from the mistakes.

I forgot one day and shot in .jpeg, but still was able to get some interesting results.

For the above shot I had to rely on Topaz Adjust tones to help out.

This shot was red and I thought I would not be able to save it in any way.
I did shoot in RAW so was able to work with colors and tones.

Finally, something I could live with. It is still somewhat a 'flop' as it has a slight white area in the middle of the shot.
I think that may have been some reflection on the lens.
With some deft dodging and burning I could have it cleaned up in no time.

My newest thing is to try a long exposure with water.  This was a bit trickier because the leaves are turning colors and it makes for a very different result.

However, I like it as an 'almost black and white' shot.  The greens are white and the other colors are varies shades of the selenium tone I chose.

Happy Shooting!  Fall is here.  It is one of the happiest times of the year for me and my cameras.

More IR Photography Fun

Shot with my elderly Olympus E-420.  ISO at 100, f22, exposure time of 20 seconds.  Note, I also shot this in black and white mode.  The greens didn't turn out as 'white' and eerie as I wanted in this shot, but I love the softness of the clouds that were moving through.

Next is basically the same shot at 10 seconds. But edited much differently, I kept working at changing channels and editing until I got white in the foliage.

Well now in this shot I waited for the sun to come out from beneath a cloud and I worked with the colors a bit more and did get the trees behind the house white.

So I decided to follow some instructions I found on developing this shot for a more 'blue' sky and I got this:

Well that certainly is interesting and a bit wild.  I abandoned that to go see what my Nikon D3200 outfitted with the 50mm came up with.

Shot with the Nikon with an ISO of 800, f10, and 3 seconds.  This didn't turn out too badly and although not perfect with a touch more editing I think the whites would come out if I lost all the color and went strictly black and white [it was shot in black and white mode].

But I got sidetracked and tried some other things instead:

Okay this was really funky looking like some camera gone over to the evil side.  

So I messed with the color balance some more and got this:

I liked this for some strange reason, probably because it is so 'out there'.

So I went back to the drawing board and decided to try and do it as a black and white image and perhaps I finally got it.

What I have learned is that IR Photography isn't something you can just 'run' out and shoot.  It takes a lot of thought to set up and look for the proper lighting.
Processing is very difficult because of your colors are predominantly red, so there is a lot of post editing to be done.

I shot in RAW, I used both color and black and white modes, tried different exposures and different methods of processing.

Each time a shot is taken with an IR filter, it will be somewhat of an experiment or personal taste as to how the image turns out.