Wicked Cool Infrared

 When foggy mornings arrive, I run out with my Infrared camera and a couple of different lens filters to capture some fun colors.

Morning fog can be dreary, but Infrared Chrome adds a new dimension to the scene. It picks up anything with chlorophyll and makes it a gorgeous hue of reds. Dead trees and bark show up as black and anything to do with sky-water, shows up in a blue hue.

I was in the valley fog of the Kickapoo River. Fog is more common here along the river most mornings.

The sun was just beginning to break through the fog in this shot of a pine stand.

I like to use Infrared in challenging situations. The 665nm filter is a light spectrum that we cannot see either. It is really best used in full blazing sunlight. But I enjoy trying to push the limits with seeing what light does to it during a sunrise. The same principle works here. Foliage is highlighted.

The photo below was taken at sunrise when the sun first touched this bush

Below is another shot with the 665nm on a foggy morning. The filter sees through the haze a bit better than a regular camera. I was intrigued by the spider web on the neighbor's rye grass. [This went along with my study of grasses!]

In bright sunlight, the 665nm really performs!

This is a tree in my 'back' yard in full sunlight on a very hot and humid day.
Technically I should have edited the clouds into a white color, however the humidity picked up the blue hue.

With the spectrum filters, one has to edit the photos to get this effect. The IRChrome and the pure 850nm black and white filter barely need any touching up. 

This is how that same tree looked 'in camera'.

To get wild colors with other hues, one has to do a Channel Swap of colors. Depending on the programs used that can vary the results.

This next simple swap was done with a different editing program that obviously reads the camera colors differently. 

This program picked up the clouds with a slightly less blue hue. I could easily turn the leaves into a cotton candy pink. But I was also pleased with this.

It just depends on which one pleases your inner artist more as to which one you keep and which one you toss out.

Last? Two sunrises in different light spectrums.

Normal....

IR Chrome:

The History of IR Chrome and the use of IR Photography in WWII~~~~~~

Excerpt from Kolari Vision:

When WWII began, militaries deployed the use of infrared aerial photography as they did in WWI. The unique ability of IR to differentiate false greenery used for camouflage from real, live foliage (known as the “Wood Effect”) was a powerful asset, and many used it in hopes of gaining every advantage possible on the battlefield. However, a new paint that could mimic the Wood Effect was developed to render this photographic method useless.

A new tactic needed to be born to get back the upper hand. Kodak and the US Military worked together to create a false color infrared film — Aerochrome III Infrared 1443. With this new color IR film, the chlorophyll in plants would photograph as hot pink instead of a snowy white, making camouflage detection possible again without the Wood Effect paint getting in the way.

Infrared IRChrome Filter

Ahhh. More infrared.

There is something so interesting and fascinating to me about another light spectrum.

There are no boundaries.

The sky can be blue.

Or some hue of cyan. Perhaps an orange hued color?

The leaves and grass are not green.They can be white or pink...or perhaps you fancy yellow?

It all depends on the filter you choose to use and any post processing.

The above 3 photos were shot with a 665nm Filter. The sky usually turns out a pleasing bluish color after a channel swap. The leaves can be pinkish or white. Or if you really want to change things up, with the Viveza you can almost make it any color in the light spectrum.

I got the filter I've been lusting after for about a year now. It is an IR Chrome digital filter meant to let your camera take a digital photo much like the Kodak IRChrome film. The film was very expensive and not simple to develop. It was created to see camouflage clothes against the backround of foliage. I should do an experiment with that.

I bet my camo clothes would not reflect light in the same manner.

Anyway.

Here is some of my first works with the IR Chrome Filter. 

I took Tuesday off for a 'self' adventure. I wanted to just go somewhere were I didn't have to guide someone or even have to give a time as when I would be back.

That was my birthday gift to myself.

And it was a good one.

I used DxO software to work with this. When this company purchased the NIK software from Google, they did a great job of developing it further.

Below is a couple of shots from this morning. Not the classic IR Chrome shots you will see displayed on photo sites.

I do my own thing.

This has to be one of my favorite of the day. Partly because it is so vivid and surreal.

The real light of this moment was like this:

This was taken with my regular camera. I do love this one as it represents how the creek and the air above the creek react to the hot sun.

Fog.

Yet. The Infrared is so wildly different! 

I didn't get the typical IRChrome shot.

It would look more like this:

Bright blue sky and bright blue waters.

And there you have it for now. Since Tuesday, I've been trying to just peer at the news and not become so engrossed in it that I cannot sleep at night.

I don't have the answers and I sure wish I did.

My Infrared Fun with old files

Step one. Try an IR filter.
I did that for years and had good but frustrating results with it.

I also never quite understood what a channel swap or channel mixer was used for ... or how to use it.
I ended up with a nasty pink mess or a pretty nice black and white conversion.

This was a very long exposure with a 720nm filter attached to my Olympus camera lens. I do love how this turned out. Most of my other IR shots were flops.

I kept trying though. I wanted to have those cool odd colors that I'd seen before. I read tutorials and thought I had 'it'. No. I wasn't really very close.
Sometimes I was rewarded with this...

My only option was to ditch it and hope for something better.

Yet I wasn't going to give up.
 I switched the white balance to Fluorescent. And got purply pinky stuff.

But at least after some effort I could get this...

And my only choice was to convert it to black and white.
Again, not quite what I wanted.

I wanted false colors, odd colors. Colors that were different.

So I went back to the drawing board and started to learn about Channel Mixers and swapping blue and red. About how the green effects things. I began to dabble in adjusting the hues of colors.
No rhythm or reason for it. Just experimenting.

I picked up an old file that I considered a flop from 2017.

Well that was odd enough, but turned out a bit better in black and white than the odd colors. But I sort of liked the odd colors. This was a 3 step process. Going from Auto Color>Channel Mixer>Saturation and Hue adjustments. The color shot could have been a bit more normal, I suppose, but I was into seeing how far I could push the odd colors.

So I thought I'd try another one or two from 2017.
I won't show you the red shot but...

I like this edit a lot. In fact it would be one I'd keep.

But I can't leave well enough alone of course.

A bit of color swapping here, but I wasn't happy with it.
So...

Well why not? False colors!
What if I could see the world through different light wavelengths?

And then of course I had to convert it to Black and White because not everyone can handle liking false colors and seeing the world in colors that are not supposed to be.

With my little converted pocket Canon I am having a lot of fun.

Enough so I may eventually convert my Olympus to a full spectrum camera for Infrared work.

It may be wild or it may be tame.
It depends on my artistic type mood.