M8 and Infra-Red Photography

[farnz]

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Some examples of handheld infrared taken with the 093 filter on my M8 and 21mm f/2.8 Kobalux.

 

Pete.

 

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[Seeingeye]

Some examples of handheld infrared taken with the 093 filter on my M8 and 21mm f/2.8 Kobalux.

 

Pete.

 

 

Wow, look at those blacks and the contrast with the white foliage! And you are still getting hand holdable speeds with the darker filter, which was something I had been wondering about.

 

Thanks for sharing, Pete.

 

Regards

 

Mike

[Seeingeye]

After one or two misadventures in getting an IR filter that would fit on my lens, I have finally managed to get some infrared shots this afternoon. As per Pete's request, I am posting one of my first attempts here, taken using a Hoya R72 - the only IR filter that I have at the moment.

 

This is not an entirely straight image as it came out of the camera, as I added a bit of diffuse glow. I can confirm Pete's observation about a hot spot, as I have had to remove some vignetting as part of the post capture processing. The lens used was a 28 Summicron at f/4, but the hot spot was still present wide open on other shots.

 

For my initial experiments before going out for a shoot, I left the camera's white balance set to daylight and the images had a very magenta cast. Changing to auto improved matters a bit, but the best results were obtained with a custom white balance. Curiously, with the latter setting the DNG files retained a slight magenta tinge, whereas the JPEGs were OK in the middle and sepia at the edges. Since very little colour is being captured, mandating a monochrome conversion, I doubt it makes any difference to the final result, but it does make it easier to review images on the camera's rear screen.

 

So far, I am sufficiently encouraged to get one of the black filters to see how they work out.

 

Regards

 

Mike

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[farnz]

Mike,

 

An impressive start to IR! One thing I discovered early on is that higher ISO and IR don't mix very well and I don't stray above ISO 320. I notice quite a lot of noise in the sky that I would associate with a higher ISO. The foliage and clouds have come out very well with your R72 and you've removed the hot spot adeptly.

 

Please post some more.

 

Pete.

[Yogibear]

With the M8 It's even possible to shoot action photos in IR...

 

CV Snapshot-Skopar 4/25 f5.6 1/90s ISO 640 B&W 092 IR Filter

 

[Seeingeye]

Mike,

 

An impressive start to IR! One thing I discovered early on is that higher ISO and IR don't mix very well and I don't stray above ISO 320. I notice quite a lot of noise in the sky that I would associate with a higher ISO. The foliage and clouds have come out very well with your R72 and you've removed the hot spot adeptly.

 

Please post some more.

 

Pete.

 

Thanks, Pete. The shot was taken on Croham Hurst mid Saturday afternoon, a spot that you might know quite well.

 

The ISO was 320, although I put some graininess in when I added the diffuse glow, so maybe I will not need to do that next time as the original is already showing some noise. Looking at the original again, the noise + grain has been amplified by the sharpening. In this instance, I used USM, but the effect is very similar with Smart Sharpen. Although I was looking for a slightly grainy effect, I clearly need to reconsider my post processing workflow for infrared. Anyway, it is not particularly obvious on the A4 test print I ran off and overall I am pleased with the result.

 

I did do some test shots at ISO 2500 and you are right, it's horrible.

 

I don't know whether the new ACR processing in CS5/LR3 would fare any better.

 

Regards

 

Mike

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+1

Hi Mike,

a big thank you on the link to the article on L.L. - it was helpful, informative, and those tables should give a nice running start for me. However, it kinda blows to see the IR Photography capabilites being touted on a "high" traffic site like that! (Whatever opinions might be re :LuminiousLandscape, they are decidedly not as 'niche' a site as, say, a L-Camera-Forum.com is.

 

Articles like this might stir up more buyers to support price levels on the M8 out there in the 2nd hand markets.

Yep!

Fine by me.

[Tom Johnston]

another contribution to this thread

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[Tom Johnston]

another example- mt tahoma at sunset/moonrise

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[richam]

The lenses that I've found to have worked well with IR are the 35/1.2 Nokton, the 28/2.8 Elmarit asph and the 21/2.8 Kobalux. The 35/3.5 Summaron is widely hailed as a good lens for IR too.

 

Pete, I've had the opposite experience with the 28/2.8 Elmarit asph. I get hot spots at smaller apertures. Quite disappointing to me, as this is the lens I use on the M8 most all the time.

[farnz]

Pete, I've had the opposite experience with the 28/2.8 Elmarit asph. I get hot spots at smaller apertures. Quite disappointing to me, as this is the lens I use on the M8 most all the time.

Michael,

 

Mine showed mild hot spots at small apertures so I used it wide open and all that was needed was a little vignetting adjustment in pp to produce acceptably constant luminance across the frame.

 

Pete.

[richam]

Michael,

 

Mine showed mild hot spots at small apertures so I used it wide open and all that was needed was a little vignetting adjustment in pp to produce acceptably constant luminance across the frame.

 

Pete.

 

My experience is similar. As long as I use f5.6 or wider, no hot spot problem. This can be seen in my referenced posting. I was still disappointed that f8 and smaller produces hot spots; I like to use these apertures for tripod shooting when I want maximum DOF.

[Seeingeye]

Michael,

 

Mine showed mild hot spots at small apertures so I used it wide open and all that was needed was a little vignetting adjustment in pp to produce acceptably constant luminance across the frame.

 

Pete.

 

I have been doing some experimentation and have found that the effect is too strong on the 28 Summicron to remove the effect with adjustmentment of vignetting alone. Where it is particularly obvious, use of the adjustment brush during Raw conversion in CS4 to reduce the exposure is working well for me, possibly followed up by a subsequent tweak in Photoshop.

 

Sometimes, though, the contrast between the centre and edges caused by the hotspot can be beneficial as I discovered in Dorset earlier this week.

 

Mike

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