Getting Familiar With Shooting IR

A few more IR explorations. Took these scenic landscapes with the *ist DL2 with the DA 21mm Limited. As I mentioned awhile back, digital IR photography is essentially a 2 step process: capturing the IR image on camera and secondly, post processing the images.



In the short period that I've been shooting digital IR, I've found that I've needed to pay attention to a few areas prior to shooting. First order of the day is to establish the baseline white balance of the camera. This applies to both modded IR cameras or a DSLR with an IR filter attached. Taking a manual white balance reading from something that reflects a lot of IR light like a patch of green grass/leaves in bright light is the proven method. The key issue here is taking the WB reading in bright sunlight. Take a WB reading on an overcast day and you're likely to get a somewhat different result when post-processing later.



IR images look best when there is good contrast in the scene. That said, it is pretty important to get the exposure right to reduce subsequent post processing issues. Because only a fraction of the light spectrum is recorded on the camera's sensor, I tend to think the camera's dynamic range is reduced a little.



Underexpose and you're likely to have flat or noisy images. Blow the highlights and you lose detail. The best aid in exposure determination is using the camera's histogram on the LCD as it can be difficult to eyeball the reddish brown images captured on-camera. As exposure can vary according to the scene, it is a good idea to bracket. It is also a good practice to delete those images that for want of a better word, "cannot make it".



Shooting in Manual mode offers the best control but shooting in Aperture priority with +EV compensation is another workable method. Focusing wise, autofocus is definitely useful. To compensate for the slight shift in wavelength, some tweaking of the AF in the debug menu (for a modded IR camera) is good, but if you're using a standard DSLR with screw-in IR filters, stopping down will cover the slight focus shift. Use the lowest ISO setting possible.



The images here were taken just a few days after I got the modded camera. They aren't perfect in my opinion. The WB wasn't really spot on and I was a little rusty in the post processing department, but these so-so shots provide good feedback on small details that need to be worked on to get one's personal look in IR lanscapes. I'll post some information on the post processing that I use in a later post.