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Getting "Ektachrome Infrared" colors out of the M8


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I spent most of today trying to learn Lightroom, and once I had some of the basics figured out, how to convert color images to black-and-white. I found several good videos on the internet that discuss this. Here's the link for what I thought was the best:

http://photoshopnews.com/stories/downloads/LRNgrayscale_STD2.mov

 

I took one of my earlier photos taken with my IR filter (which isn't a pure IR) and used some of these ideas to convert it into a b&w image. What I noticed, is the foilage came out a light-gray, and not a pure white. I'm guessing this is because my filter isn't cutting off all of the visible light. I expect to get several new filters in a few weeks, one of which will be the "black" filter that doesn't let any visible light through.

 

Here's the image I ended up with, following some of the ideas in the above link:

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Mike--

That's a very nice, restful picture! Looks just different enough to excite interest, but not enough to scream "Infrared"!

 

Probably in this case you could adjust levels to bring up the light tones and give the image more snap. That's the thing about IR: You're photographing something that no one can see, so it's up to you how far you want to push it.

 

 

I think I misled you before in speaking of 'pure' IR. As Michael said, these filters all transmit IR. I doubt (you can prove me wrong ;)) that one or another would be photographically a better choice.

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Mike--

That's a very nice, restful picture! Looks just different enough to excite interest, but not enough to scream "Infrared"!

 

Probably in this case you could adjust levels to bring up the light tones and give the image more snap. That's the thing about IR: You're photographing something that no one can see, so it's up to you how far you want to push it.

 

 

I think I misled you before in speaking of 'pure' IR. As Michael said, these filters all transmit IR. I doubt (you can prove me wrong ;)) that one or another would be photographically a better choice.

 

 

I've got so much to learn about everything.... thanks for the advice. I will try to adjust the "levels" and see if I can do what you suggested. Most of the photography I've done for many years now is what I guess you could call "news" photography, and I don't usually do much of anything to the images. My editors want the photos "out of the camera, untouched" and now that I'm retired and have a lot of time, I need to do a lot of catching up.

 

By the way, regarding the filters - yes, as you said "these filters all transmit IR", but I think the key thing is the opposite side of the coin - the "black" filters no longer transmit any visible light, but ONLY the infrared light. I don't have one yet, so I can't test this out right now, but I suspect that if I use one of the "black" filters that completely blocks the visible light, the red tint of my IR images might vanish, and the plants would turn a pure white instead of a light gray color. At least that sounds reasonable to me, but I have no way of testing it.

 

I absolutely LOVE the M8 for allowing me to do all this so easily! Before I purchased the M8, all I had in digital cameras was the pro Nikons (D3 and old D2x), a Canon point-and-shoot, and an old Canon Pro1. The very thing that so many Leica users dislike (the ability to transmit IR) makes the camera ideal - not to mention that the viewfinder view remains the same, even with a "black" filter in place. That would have made IR shooting so much more difficult on those other cameras.

 

(I found an interesting article that suggested that the electronic viewfinder of the Pro1 might have worked perfectly even with the black filter in place, but I'm not sure I understood them correctly. Their main point they made is that the Pro1 is a great camera to have the anti-IR filter removed, making it an IR only camera....).

 

I wish more people were posting images here, along with a description of what they did in order to get the image. I like to see images like that, so I can use the same tools and try to replicate the image myself.

 

I also enjoy taking HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos, but while my Nikons do it easily, the M8 makes it much harder. That's fixed in the M9, but were I to replace my M8 with an M9, I might lose the ability to do so well at IR.

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Mike,

 

I hope you don't mind but I took your shot into LR and quickly tweaked it and produced the result below. You may not like the tweaked shot but that wasn't the point :) it was to demonstrate that there's room left to manouver in LR if you want to.

 

The shot was underexposed so I increased exposure to 2.00 until the clouds showed white, and the histogram touched the right wall but this also lightened the shadows so I increased Blacks to 15 so that there's still detail in the foreground tree trunk. I added a little contrast to firm up the mid-tones and that's it. It's a very 'down and dirty' tweak and there's more you could do to achieve the look you like.

 

I think you might have a small hotspot in the centre to the right of the bench but it's hard to tell because that looks like where the sunlight touches down so I'd expect it to be brighter anyway.

 

Pete.

 

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Wow; not only do I like it more, it's finally starting to look like what I expected an IR shot might look like in B&W; maybe I don't need to get the "black" filter after all. Thanks!

 

(I did start to play with the image some more late last night, but I like what you did more than what I came up with!)

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I don't have one yet, so I can't test this out right now, but I suspect that if I use one of the "black" filters that completely blocks the visible light, the red tint of my IR images might vanish, and the plants would turn a pure white instead of a light gray color.

The red or magenta tint won’t go away as it is an artifact of the internal image processing. The camera assumes the red- and blue-sensitive pixels to be less sensitive than the green-sensitive ones – which is true as far as the visible spectrum is concerned – and thus boosts their signals to avoid a greenish tint. IR, on the other hand, affects all the pixels more or less uniformly, but the “red” and “blue” signals still get a boost, resulting in the tint you observe.

 

Btw, when the leaves start to lose their chlorophyll and eventually shrivel up in autumn, the Wood effect responsible for the typical appearance of foliage in IR photography gradually vanishes.

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Wow; not only do I like it more, it's finally starting to look like what I expected an IR shot might look like in B&W; maybe I don't need to get the "black" filter after all. ...

Mike,

 

If you want to get results that look like the one below you'll need to get a (black) 093 filter I think. I've tried to get similar results from (dark red) 092 and R72 filters but the foliage doesn't quite make it to white.

 

Pete.

 

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I'll be at B&H in a few weeks. I'll definitely get one.

 

Would I be correct in assuming that the reason any filter that allows visible light to pass through it, would start making the image "gray" rather than white, and the more visible light that comes through, the darker the gray will become? I assume this is up until the filter becomes "clear", when the leaves would become the normal shade of gray we're used to seeing.

 

I used to wonder how people could get images similar to the one you've posted. I guess you've explained it!

 

(Would the black filter be more or less useful than the dark red IR filter, for the two-exposure method of replicating IR Ektachrome film?)

 

I know there are lots of brands of filters, and some of them cost a fortune. Any recommendations on specifically what to get?

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Mike,

 

If you look about halfway down this Wrotniak page you'll find a section called "Infrared Filter Summary" that lists various brands of IR-pass filter and their characteristics (performance) in blocking or passing visible light. Remember that the visible spectrum doesn't extend much above 750 nanometers so any filter that shows a steep fall-off of transmission at or above 750 nm is what you're looking for.

 

For the shot I posted I used a Singh-Ray I-Ray filter (not an 093 as I'd mis-remembered :o), which is not listed and whose specifications Singh-Ray doesn't publicise. Imho it's quite close to, but slightly better than a B+W 093, but significantly more expensive.

 

It's also quite important to think about technique when using black IR filters because many lenses have hotspots. Now I have a pet theory that hotspots are related to aperture and the wider the aperture you use the more the hotspot is distributed across the lens and the less pronounced its effect. I therefore tend to shoot wide open and deal with the typical vignetting with the vignetting tool in reverse in LR.

 

I've mostly used two lenses for IR, which have proved excellent and because I shoot them wide open means I can usually get away with hand-held. The two lenses are the 28/f2.8 Elmarit asph and the Voigtlander 35/1.2 Nokton asph.

 

Pete.

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The shot was underexposed so I increased exposure to 2.00 until the clouds showed white, and the histogram touched the right wall but this also lightened the shadows so I increased Blacks to 15 so that there's still detail in the foreground tree trunk. I added a little contrast to firm up the mid-tones and that's it. It's a very 'down and dirty' tweak and there's more you could do to achieve the look you like.

 

 

Farnz, I thought I'd try to do exactly what you did, but I guess I don't know enough about Lightroom.

 

You "increased exposure to 2.00", but when I load the image, and go to the right panel to adjust things, if I change the "exposure" to 2.00 and blacks to 15, even when I bump the contrast all the way up, my image looks far, far lighter than yours. On my screen, the image is far too light when I increase the exposure by 2.00.

 

Does this mean that different computers running Lightroom achieve the same effects using different settings, or that I'm doing something wrong? I'll post a screen capture.

 

I think I can follow your words, and make the image look like what you did to it, but my "numbers" will be quite different.

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Mike,

 

In that case pull the exposure back to what looks right to you and use the Recovery slider to rescue the highlights if necessary. Likewise adjust the Blacks slider until you just have detail in the shadow areas.

 

I notice that your Vibrance and Saturation sliders are greyed out, which indicates that the photo has already been processed for B&W (in camera perhaps?) and may indicate why your result looks different. Bear in mind too that I'm working on the image you posted but you're working on the original.

 

Pete.

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Well, this is strange. I've played (only) with the settings at the right in the attached screen capture, and while many parts of the image start to look like what you've done, the trees in the background in your image have much more "contrast/detail" than when I do it. I've got to stop for a while, but I'll post what I've gotten so far. Did you do anything beyond adjusting the sliders in the develop module? It is starting to look better - in retrospect, my original attempt looks sort of like "mush" compared to how nicely you did it!!

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Well, this is strange. I've played (only) with the settings at the right in the attached screen capture, and while many parts of the image start to look like what you've done, the trees in the background in your image have much more "contrast/detail" than when I do it. I've got to stop for a while, but I'll post what I've gotten so far. Did you do anything beyond adjusting the sliders in the develop module? It is starting to look better - in retrospect, my original attempt looks sort of like "mush" compared to how nicely you did it!!

Aw, shucks, ya sure do say the nicest things, Sugar. :D

 

It looks you've lost detail in the trees because the histogram has hit the left wall hard and the shadows are clipping so ease back a little on the Blacks slider until the histogram just touches the left wall. It might help to add a little Fill Light slider to brighten the mid-tones.

 

I often add a little punch to the contrast by pulling up the top and pulling down the bottom of the Tone Curve so I may have done so in this case but apart from that it was just the sliders.

 

Pete.

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It looks you've lost detail in the trees because the histogram has hit the left wall hard and the shadows are clipping so ease back a little on the Blacks slider until the histogram just touches the left wall. It might help to add a little Fill Light slider to brighten the mid-tones.

 

I often add a little punch to the contrast by pulling up the top and pulling down the bottom of the Tone Curve so I may have done so in this case but apart from that it was just the sliders.

 

 

 

I followed your suggestions, and got to where I think I have something I like as much as the version you posted. The more I do here, the more I realize how much I don't know, and I appreciate all the help you've given me. Learning all the settings and adjustments in Lightroom (probably much like Photoshop) is far more difficult than getting the IR stuff to work properly. I'll post my latest version, which on my laptop looks quite similar to what you've done. (It's so frustrating, because every time I think I'm getting close, I notice something that you indicated was wrong, and when I fix the "mistake", the effect isn't what I want. I think you're right - playing with "curves" seems to have made a big difference!

 

Something else that bothers me - if I look at my laptop perpendicular to the screen, it looks "good". If my eye is a little too high or too low, the image no longer looks "right". I don't know of any way to look at the numbers in Lightroom and see if I'm close to a good exposure, and doing it by eye, looking at the screen, depends on how I'm viewing it. When I get home, I can check things on a real monitor.

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Mike,

 

I think it's looking pretty good now too. If you're interested in reading to increase your knowledge of LR then I recommend The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers Voices That Matter: Amazon.co.uk: Scott Kelby: Books or Martin Evening's LR 2 book. Of the two, I find that Kelby has an easier and lighter style to follow.

 

Pete.

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For me, "easier and lighter style" is good. Up until now, I've been using the sledge-hammer technique, charging ahead until I get stuck, and then either watching the Lightroom training videos over and over, or doing a "search" on the internet. The book would be a good idea - I'll try to find one when I get back to Miami tomorrow.

 

 

The more I use the M8, the more I like it. I'm wondering how well the M9 would work for IR. To me, that's a very important consideration (but so is HDR, which is much easier in the M9 as it has "bracketing"). I realize now that once I learn "what" to do, the M8 does its part quite well.

 

From what everyone up above has said, I used to think that Photoshop would be the tool I need to work on the IR images, but now it sure seems like Lightroom can do a good deal of it. I wonder if there's any way to do the "channel" work in Lightroom. I guess it's only really needed for the "false color" work as was done in the past by IR Ektachrome.

 

Thanks again!!!!!

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Mike--

The IR sensitivity was a "mistake" in the M8 that we can capitalize on.

 

Like other manufacturers, Leica has tried to eliminate IR sensitivity in the M9. Apparently there's so little that for practical purposes, the camera can't be used for IR.

 

 

I'm glad Pete could help you with Lightroom; I was glad to read his advice. :)

 

 

Congratulations BTW--you've really pepped up that picture. It really looks good!

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... I wonder if there's any way to do the "channel" work in Lightroom. I guess it's only really needed for the "false color" work as was done in the past by IR Ektachrome.

Mike,

 

Unfortunately not; you'll need to go into PS to play hardball with channels, curves, layers and LAB colour. I think of LR as a slicker version of Adobe Camera Raw with some bells and whistles (although with every update ACR is closing on LR).

 

Pete.

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By following the advice posted here, I'm now able to create nice images from M8 photos shot with the old Leica IR filter. I think I'll be able to get the different effects once I get a "black" filter. So, that part of the learning curve seems to be taken care of. (Anyone who wanted to do the same thing could follow all the advice here, and probably do at least as well, and maybe better.)

 

What's left is learning how to get the Ektachrome effect. I guess that means using a tripod and taking one shot "straight" and one with the IR filter (preferably black). That's the raw materials. Next comes the processing. In my case, I think I've learned the basic steps, but I've still got a long way to go to learn how to get the beautiful results I used to be able to with IR film. This item has a goldmine of information on how to do it, but that's mostly how to "process" the two images, creating one false-color IR image. I think that's going to take a lot of work to get the results I'd like to achieve.

 

Maybe that will be tomorrow's project. I'd really like to figure out the whole thing, and then document how it was done, so anyone could follow the steps and get a similar result.

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  • 5 months later...

I did get the "black" filter, but a couple of days later I left on a long trip to Asia. I had originally planned on taking the Leica, but finally decided that I had too many "work" type shots to do, and needed a DSLR for them. Anyway, I'm back as of a couple of days ago, and ready to get involved in IR again.

 

I'm making another trip to India in a couple of months - I think I'll ignore the "work" stuff somewhat, and try to see what I can do with the M8 shooting IR.

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