M8 and infared

[GoodmanS]

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I have seen some discussion of the extended color range on the M8, not sure if this has been completely covered, but here is my experience:

 

I found an opportunity in my seldom used MATE (great lens, not fond of size or f4, prefer primes). I bought both the 92 and 93 filters. The 93 is considered the black, cutting out all visible light (or almost all?), whereas the 92 fudges some, and is considered a deep dark. I will not go into the science of the wavelengths, you will have to figure that out on your own.

 

I found much better results with the 92, including the ability to hand hold at around 1/30 exposures, f/4, iso 640. At faster apertures, patient focus practice is often necessary, but I found it possible, even with no IR focus scale on the lens. The MATE performed very well.

 

NYC, f.4, handheld:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56757&stc=1&d=1191694112

 

The 93 filter, much longer exposure, I believe 2 or 4 s., no color correction (heavy crop):

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56758&stc=1&d=1191694112

 

A pic without color correction (92):

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56759&stc=1&d=1191694112

 

So it is apparent that the 93, with very long exposures and less pleasing results is the less interesting alternative, although it is 'real' IR.

 

Hope this helps.

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[stunsworth]

In fairness the IR effect is highly subject dependant and I've had reasonable success with a 'black' IR filter.

 

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[GoodmanS]

Not bad work. That would make some sense, I mostly used it in rather hazy conditions and was displeased with the results so I let it collect dust for a while.

[techpan]

I just tried doing IR for the first time with my M8. Used a BW 92 filter with the Elmarit 21mm ASPH @ F5.6.

 

[marknorton]

I find IR work is a bit like fish-eye work, interesting for about 3 hours but, sorry, after that, it does nothing for me.

[DaveB]

I find IR work is a bit like fish-eye work, interesting for about 3 hours but, sorry, after that, it does nothing for me.

 

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I like it during the middle of the day when the sun is high and too harsh. It gives me something to do while waiting for the glow of the golden hour.

[woodyspedden]

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One of the latest issues of LFI featured a color portfolio of infrared work which I found very interesting. Anyone else seen this and have comments/

 

Woody Spedden

[howard_cummer]

I use the M8 and the MATE with a BW 092 IR filter to take IR pix. Much easier than using an SLR because you can still see the image through the rangefinder. I develop my IR pictures in Silky Pix Studio 3.0E because I like the colour rendition. Please see the sample below.

Cheers

Howard (in Hong Kong)

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[erlingmm]

I have started experimenting with infrared on my M8. I am using a Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46 on my 28.

 

When I open the image in Lightroom, I see a clear picture, but colorwise only shades of red (similar to the landscape picture in the posting above from GoodmanS). However the histogram seems to indicate that there is also blue and green in the image. Adjusting the WB down to 2000 (I cannot get lower in Lightroom), makes the picture blue-ish, but still no color variation in the image itself. I have tried to experiment with the color adjustments in Lightroom, but I am unable to extract different color shades, like in some of the images above, and in the LFI article on infrared from Andalucia a few issues back. I remember using infrared film 40 years back, and it gave some color variation.

 

Can somone please help me to understand what I don't understand here?

a) Wrong filter (or exposure)

Don't understand Lightroom

c) Don't understand infrared - there is no color variation - convert to B/W and forget color

d) Other tools

e) ?

[ArtZ]

I have started experimenting with infrared on my M8. I am using a Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46 on my 28.

 

When I open the image in Lightroom, I see only shades of red. However the histogram seems to indicate that there is also blue and green in the image. Adjusting the WB down to 2000 (I cannot get lower in Lightroom), makes the picture blue-ish, but still no color variation in the image itself. I have tried to experiment with the color adjustments in Lightroom, but I am unable to extract different color shades, like in some of the images above, and in the LFI article on infrared from Analucia a few issues back. I remeber using infrared film 40 years back, and it gave some color variation.

 

Can somone please help me to understand what I don't understand here?

a) Wrong filter (or exposure)

Don't understand Lightroom

c) Don't understand infrared - there is no color variation - make it B/W

d) Other tools

e) ?

 

Silly question: Did you remove the IR/UV filter from the lens before you placed the Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46? If you have both filters together you get a black out.

.

[erlingmm]

Silly question: Did you remove the IR/UV filter from the lens before you placed the Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46? If you have both filters together you get a black out.

.

 

Good question, but I did remove it ;-)

[jimcollum]

I have started experimenting with infrared on my M8. I am using a Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46 on my 28.

 

When I open the image in Lightroom, I see a clear picture, but colorwise only shades of red (similar to the landscape picture in the posting above from GoodmanS). However the histogram seems to indicate that there is also blue and green in the image. Adjusting the WB down to 2000 (I cannot get lower in Lightroom), makes the picture blue-ish, but still no color variation in the image itself. I have tried to experiment with the color adjustments in Lightroom, but I am unable to extract different color shades, like in some of the images above, and in the LFI article on infrared from Andalucia a few issues back. I remember using infrared film 40 years back, and it gave some color variation.

 

Can somone please help me to understand what I don't understand here?

a) Wrong filter (or exposure)

Don't understand Lightroom

c) Don't understand infrared - there is no color variation - convert to B/W and forget color

d) Other tools

e) ?

 

you're not doing anything wrong..except using Lightroom. Lightroom/ACR only supports white balancre down to 2000 K. To white balance an IR image meansgoing from 1700 to1900K. I've talked to Adobe development on this, and it's in their plan.. but nothing immediately (IR market isn't that big yet).

The RAW converter to use for IR is capture one... but you need to make sure you have pattern noise removal enabled.. otherwise you get horrible digital artifacting.

 

jim

[mjh]

I have started experimenting with infrared on my M8. I am using a Heliopan Infrarot 715 ES 46 on my 28.

 

When I open the image in Lightroom, I see a clear picture, but colorwise only shades of red (similar to the landscape picture in the posting above from GoodmanS). However the histogram seems to indicate that there is also blue and green in the image. Adjusting the WB down to 2000 (I cannot get lower in Lightroom), makes the picture blue-ish, but still no color variation in the image itself. I have tried to experiment with the color adjustments in Lightroom, but I am unable to extract different color shades, like in some of the images above, and in the LFI article on infrared from Andalucia a few issues back. I remember using infrared film 40 years back, and it gave some color variation.

 

Can somone please help me to understand what I don't understand here?

a) Wrong filter (or exposure)

Don't understand Lightroom

c) Don't understand infrared - there is no color variation - convert to B/W and forget color

d) Other tools

e) ?

Your Heliopan filter limits the M8’s sensitivity to mostly infrared and some red, so cannot expect any real color to be captured. The red, green, and blue filters block some, but not all of the infrared, and any color in the image is the result of the different IR transmissivity of the three kinds of filters; it doesn’t depend in any way on the subject’s color. Rainer Bültert’s photographs in LFI 5/2007 were processed in Capture One; they got their surreal look by adjusting the color angle until vegetation happened to be rendered green again.

 

By the way, you also do false color infrared photography: mount the camera on a tripod, take one shot with and one without the IR filter, open the image taken without the filter in Photoshop (or whatever), copy the green channel, paste it into the blue channel, copy the red channel, paste it into the green channel, open the IR shot, reduce all three channels to a grayscale image, copy it, paste it into the red channel of the color image, and voilà – there’s your false color image.

[andit]

Hi guys,

 

Interesting thread. As someone who uses a specialized IR camera to do predictive maintenance and fault finding to make a living, I find the image taken with the 93 filter to be quite accurate as to what one sees with an IR camera.

 

Looking at the wavelengths, visible light ranges from 0.4 to 0.7 microns wavelength. The M8 seems to be sensitive past the 0.7 micron mark - probably up to 1.2 microns would be my guess (referred to as near IR). The IR spectrum runs through to roughly 15 microns.

 

Interestingly enough this is split again into two types of IR. Short Wave runs from 2 to 5 microns and Long Wave runs from 7.5 through to 12 microns. Believe it or not, between 5 and 7 microns virtually no radiation can be measured on the earth. It is absorbed to almost 100% by the atmosphere.

 

I have attached two images of what things look like with an IR camera. In the first image you see the visible light image (please don't look at the quality of this image, you can take better images with your cell phone than these things can). You don't really see anything wrong here. The second image shows the IR image - immediately you see where the problem lies. The colors that you see here are generated by the camera and by the color pallet that you use. This is to make changes in temperature over distances obvious.

 

Sorry, hope I was not to technical. Just thought it might be interesting to show you guys what IR really does and how it can be used.

 

Andreas

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