I just received my Hoya R72 Infrared filter a couple of weeks ago and I could not be happier.
A new challenge for my photography skills.
The thing about Infrared photography is that you do need to work to get a good shot.
To get a image result such as the one above, you will need a few things.
Here is a list to get you started in digital SLR infrared photography.
- Infrared filter, like the Hoya R72
- Tripod, you need to take long exposures, even the steadiest hands can cause camera shake blur
- a shutter release cable or a remote, to further remove the possibility of camera blur
A good time of day for shooting is 10 A.M. to 2P.M. you want bright sunny spots with little or no shadows. Try to keep the sun in the background. The sunnier the better for the image results.
White Balance : You can use Auto WB but for optimum results it is best to click on menu and select PRE or right click. Select OK and then click Select Measure. Point your camera at some sun lit grass or blue sky, you can even use a peace of paper. Take photo, if the LCD says “data acquired” or viewfinder says “Gd” then all is well. If LCD says “unable to acquire” or viewfinder says “no Gd” then start over again. Once you get the white balance correct, we can then attach are infrared filter.
Camera Settings: switch your selector to manual or “M” mode, this is the best mode for this type of photography.
- Use ISO 200 a larger ISO will cause noise and will be hard to edit out if at all.
- Aperture f8
- A 2 second time setting is a good place to start, sometimes I use the bulb setting but I will not get into that right now.
NOTE: You will not be able to see out your viewfinder, because of how dark the infrared filter is, so you will have to guess and shoot take a look at the LCD after the shot and get a feel from it where you need to reposition the camera.
Your photos will have hues of red and grey so that brings us to this part of the process.
Post shot editing: Now if you have Adobe photo shop fine, but if you have Adobe Elements you will have to use the Hue adjustment. Adobe photo shop has a “Channel Mixer” go to the red channel and run the slider to “0” run the blue slider to “100”. This will help take the red out and turn the sky blue.
These are not be all means, hard and fast rules so have fun with it, experiment around and you will get some far out results using a infrared filter. If the editing is a bit much you can always convert the photo to black/white, those look awesome as well.
Here is a slideshow of some of my post edited infrared shots, Also try Google images for some more examples of infrared photography.
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