Neighbourhood Kitty in infra-red

Shooting IR usually means long exposures and that typically means using a tripod. Fortunately the Pentax K100D sensor is pretty sensitive towards infra-red, allowing a manageable shutter speed for hand holding to be used in bright sunlight. Here's where the camera's in-body Shake Reduction also helps to ensure pictures turn out sharp.


Well I decided to try shooting hand held at ISO 1600 on the K100D. Many IR images are typically associated with landscapes with lots of green vegetation, so I thought it would be interesting to find out how a subject like a friendly neighbourhood cat would turn out.


One thing I noticed is that the cat's ginger coat appears different when shot in IR. The first picture is straight from the camera before post-processing as it has the characteristic sepia coloured tone. However the cat's ginger brown patches takes on a purplish tinge. Actually the image doesn't look so bad and can look quite nice if it's desaturated a little. The second and third images have had a channel swap in Adobe Photoshop's Channel Mixer.


Another thing I noticed is that at such a high ISO setting, there is a noticeable difference in the noise level when shot in jpeg as compared to RAW. Image quality is so much better when the jpeg file is saved from a RAW file as compared to a straight in-camera jpeg. Images taken with the DA 18-55mm and a Hoya R72 filter straight from camera with no cropping.