Infra-Red B & W Photography with the M9

[chevy]

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Sorry, Ich bin eine Neuer Benutzer and initially put this post in the wrong place. I hope that now it is where it should be.

My results with B & W IR photography(720 nm. filter)have been very good except for focus.

With the filter over the lens only, the rangefinder uses visible light (plus IR) to achieve focus.

The photo however, is taken with mostly IR which focuses in a different plane from the visible spectrum. Lenses no longer have an IR-compensating mark.

After I focus, how can I compensate for the IR/ visible light difference ?

[jaapv]

The M9 does a bit of IR like nearly all digital cameras. The M8 is a whole lot better at it and will allow hand-held IR of amazingly good quality.Focussing depends a bit on the lens used. An old rule of the thumb is to scale-focus using the DOF mark of two stops closed ( for a 2.8 lens the 5.6 mark) but even then you will have to focus bracket each shot until you arrive at the correct offset. Some (Apo) lenses will be nearly spot-on for focus.

So: trial and error.

If you search the M8 forum you will find quite a bit on IR photography.

getDPI forums has as list of lenses that are suitable for IR photography.

[lars_bergquist]

I did a bit of IR work with my M8 and B+W 092 filter. Jaap's remarks are correct. My experience with the M9 however is that very little IR gets through the sensor filter, and the image is actually created by very deep but visible red. It is simply not worthwhile.

 

The IR capability is the feature of the M8 that I do occasionally miss.

 

The old man from the Kodacrome Age

[wda]

I am late to the game but must say my initial M8 IR landscapes fooled all viewers into thinking the light snowfall greatly enhanced my pictures, when in fact there was none! It was very convincing. I intend doing more with that combination. Normally I dislike 'over-the-top' IR effects because they are obviously so unrealistic. The M8 combination sits nicely in the middle. I haven't tried the filter on the M9 because my expectations were too low.

[lars_bergquist]

Isn't the point of pictorial IR photography (in contradistinction to technical, reconnaissance, forensic etc.) exactly that it is not realistic?

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[pico]

Isn't the point of pictorial IR photography (in contradistinction to technical, reconnaissance, forensic etc.) exactly that it is not realistic?

 

A most excellent, provocative question. The original and enduring point of this picture (low rez version) is to show the topography in the distance. It is impossible to see it without penetrating the haze in this case with IR film. The final image is to be a wide, narrow horizontal image.

 

However a couple people have found it interesting enough to request (buy) the full frame image for pictorial reasons.

 

(FWIW, I've the camera to reshoot this in 4X5 right beside me at the moment. I'm waiting for finances to settle so I can get some 4x5 IR film. The camera is all metal, and I've got the IR proof holders.)

[wda]

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Isn't the point of pictorial IR photography (in contradistinction to technical, reconnaissance, forensic etc.) exactly that it is not realistic?

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

Perhaps I should have used the word 'Artificial'. They scream IR! Whereas I have seen some very attractive IR landscapes which strike a pleasing balance between the two extremes. That is the niche which interests me.

[01af]

Isn't the point of pictorial IR photography [...] exactly that it is not realistic?

Why would an IR photograph be unrealistic? 2,400 years after Plato's Cave Allegory, you still believe reality is equal to what your eyes can see, and there cannot be any reality beyond that? Contrary to common belief, no photograph is reality. Instead, each photograph is some sort of interpretation of reality—and in this regard, IR photographs are no better and no worse than regular photographs ... just somewhat different.

 

Pictorial IR photographs look surreal—that's their point indeed, usually. But this appearance of surrealism is just an interpretation, not a fact. Perhaps you may find I am just splitting hairs ... but I feel the proper distinction between being unreal and looking unreal is essential.

[lars_bergquist]

Why would an IR photograph be unrealistic? 2,400 years after Plato's Cave Allegory, you still believe reality is equal to what your eyes can see, and there cannot be any reality beyond that? Contrary to common belief, no photograph is reality.

 

Oh my. A quick course of Basic Epistemology ... as if I would need that.

 

I did (of course) use the opposites 'realistic/unrealistic' in the general context of photo history. The main object of pictorial photography (in contradistinction to etc. etc.) has been to closely approach human visual experiences. This 'visualistic' approach has then been used as a window to comment on this visually defined reality; but that comment has been of a conceptual or emotional and sometimes even intellectual kind. Not the kind you hear in a physics lab.

 

Now mankind sees in a wavelength window from approximately 400 to 700 nanometers. That delimits our visual experience. What we might call 'realistic' or 'representational' photography would likely not represent the reality of a honeybee, which sees in ultraviolet, or a bat, which 'sees' with sound waves. But we are neither bees nor bats.

 

As for conflating a picture with the object/subject that it represents, I can assure you that I am not quite that naïve. We all know our Magritte: Ceci n'est pas une pipe. What makes an image interesting is exactly that it is not identical to its subject. But the more specific interest is in the exact ways it is different, and how we translate between subject and image.

 

Taking a picture means pointing and exclaiming: Look what I saw! That is photography's basic 'realism'. But without interpretation, a picture remains mute. Decades of work as a picture editor (amongst other things) has taught me that pictures are always ambiguous in an infinite number of ways. It is always the viewer who does the interpretation, and you cannot predict the outcome. Not even a caption can force the viewer or end user to think your way. Or feel, or react.

 

The interest in pictorial IR photography is that we can no longer routinely use the standard interpretation we would apply to a photograph. We are jolted out of our visual rut. But the enjoyable jolt would never occur if the rut wasn't there. We see what the picture represents, but it represents it differently. Make an abstraction by photographic means, like a photogram, and it would be equally unfamiliar and abstract no matter what techniques you apply. Tell the viewer that "I did this in the infrared" and the likely reply would be "so what?"

 

As for Physical Reality, we know that it is 'out there'. We may attempt to catch interesting aspects of it by our pictures, descriptions, scientific theories etc. not to forget the representations that out brains construct in the backs of our heads. They are not Reality, but they may, for our purposes, be bad or good representations. There has over geological time been an evolutionary pressure in the direction of 'realism': The australopithecine who did not see the leopard in the grass was unlikely to have his visual genes carried into the future. Kant was right in pointing out that das Ding für uns is not the same as das Ding für sich. His mistake was only to believe that das Ding für sich was inaccessible to us in principle.

 

And finally there is the rule of thumb: Don't take your opposite part for an idiot until he has proved this to be the case.

 

The old man from the Age of Reason (and Kodachrome)

[Guest]

Oh, you're back to "the old man from the age of ... "

Schöne Ostern!

 

Best regards,

Simon

[farnz]

I'm glad you're back to "The Old Man of ...". I find it most entertaining so please keep it going.

 

Pete.

[lars_bergquist]

I'm glad you're back to "The Old Man of ...". I find it most entertaining so please keep it going.

 

Pete.

 

I did actually run out of variants, so now '... from the Kodachrome Age' will be standard. Sorry about that. But 35mm Kodachrome and I did actually arrive on the scene in the same year. I am not going to discontinue myself anytime soon however.

 

The old man, you know who

[Guest]

Remember 3 versions of Kodachrome II: 25, 64 and 200.

Was there also a tungsten version?

I'm not sure about a push process, but I remember the 64 was also available as rollfilm and the original one as sheet film.

[Jeff S]

Another shot, by Volkan Yuksel, that shows the haze cutting capability with IR.

 

Jeff

[adan]

With the filter over the lens only, the rangefinder uses visible light (plus IR) to achieve focus.

 

Well, not really. The rangefinder doesn't "achieve focus," your eye does (using the RF as a tool). And since your eye can't see infrared, IR has no effect on your focusing.

 

As jaap said, for IR, you focus with visible light, and then focus a bit closer for the IR image. Exact amount varies.

 

M9 in sunlight is roughly 1/4000th as sensitive to IR as to visible light. http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/104557-so-ir-sensitive-m9.html

 

Lars may be right that there is some deep visible red involved - but I doubt deep red would make green leaves as snowy-white as the M9 can make them.

[jaapv]

To compare: the sensitivity loss of an M8 with a 092 filter is about 4-5 stops.

The ability to frame and focus using the normal visible light is the vast advantage of a rangefinder over a (modified) DSLR.

[lars_bergquist]

Lars may be right that there is some deep visible red involved - but I doubt deep red would make green leaves as snowy-white as the M9 can make them.

 

Stop doubting. Real world colours are not what they seem to be. And that includes leaf green. 'Natural' colours are usually complicated mixtures, often with a pronouncedly discontinuous spectrum.

 

To illustrate my first point, look at some really deep blue flowers through a dark red filter, one that transmits considerablt visiblde light. You will find that several of them come out, not black, as you might naively expect (complementary colours blocking each other) but dirty red. That red component is always present but it is masked by an overwhelming amount of blue. Remove that, and the red becomes apparent.

 

Yes, green leaves and grass do reflect so much deep visible red that you can obtain a passable 'snow effect' without involving any IR at all – but adding the IR willl of course reinforce it strongly.

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[farnz]

To compare: the sensitivity loss of an M8 with a 092 filter is about 4-5 stops.

The ability to frame and focus using the normal visible light is the vast advantage of a rangefinder over a (modified) DSLR.

Jaap,

 

Assuming that "modified" in this instance means replacing the UV-stop filter with a UV-pass filter over the sensor (as a number of companies offer) why would that prevent that dSLR having the ability to frame and focus in normal visible light (except using LiveView of course)? Wouldn't visible light still enter through the lens bounce off the mirror into the pentaprism and into the viewers eye?

 

Pete.

[jaapv]

No, not always, because if you have “ black” filter in front of the lens your viewfinder will black out on an SLR. Some modified camera need lens filters for IR, as you would not be able to choose the spectral response otherwise.Some services do indeed replace the filter by an IR pass one (it is more and more common too nowadays, but you have to choose your type of filter at conversion), and then you are right, but others just remove the IR filter, enabling you to keep on using the camera normally using 486 filter on the lens.

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[farnz]

Yes I can see where a lens mounted IR-pass filter would cause a problem.

 

I've never really understood why dSLR users would choose conversion where just the IR-stop filter is removed from the sensor because it means framing and focussing with the IR-pass filter off the lens and then attaching the filter, metering, adjusting focus blindly, and exposing. Without using a tripod that's going to be very awkward I should think.

 

Pete.