Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica

[Major Nikon]

The first is a false-color infrared image and the 2nd is the same source file in monochrome. Technical information is below





This image was created from my infrared converted Nikon D5000, with a Nikkor AF-S DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II lens. Infrared doesn't work well with all lenses, by my 18-200 seems to work quite well for this application and since I don't really use that lens for anything else, it pretty much lives on my converted D5000.

The D5000 was professionally converted to infrared by LifePixel with the Super Color filter option, which means the internal filter cuts off everything below about 590 nm which is pretty much the transition point between yellow and orange. So orange, red, and infrared light is passed and all the other colors are blocked. To create the false color image, Photoshop is used to set a custom white balance point from the RAW file, and then the blue and red color channels are swapped.

Alternatively as in the 2nd image, you can just convert the image to B&W, which creates a close approximation of a infrared film and a Wratten #29 filter. The interesting thing here is by adjusting the red, orange, and yellow sliders in the Camera Raw grayscale conversion, you can have a great deal of control between the foliage and sky luminescence. None of the other sliders have any effect as those colors aren't passed by the filter.

[NV Whino]

1. I'm not wild about the color

But I love the black and white.

[Major Nikon]

3. There's several different ways you can do infrared with digital

Back in the film days you used infrared monochrome film, each of which had it's own characteristics, and an infrared lens filter which filtered out the parts of the color spectrum you didn't want. The filters differed by the light frequencies they passed.

With digital you can simply use a lens filter for the same effect, however almost all digital cameras have an internal filter which blocks the infrared spectrum, so the result is very long exposures and the resulting problems that go along with that. A converted camera replaces the internal filter with one that passes infrared with or without varying degrees of the color spectrum. Back in the film days I liked using filters that passed some of the visible spectrum, because it provided more darkroom contrast control. The same is true of digital, but naturally Photoshop allows for easier experimentation. So I like digital infrared cameras that pass part of the color spectrum, even if all I'm doing is converting to monochrome. It also gives you the option of the false color thing if you want it.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. The techniques that I still have to learn!!!

There is just so much possible with photography. I will never know all the options.

I am not sure how I feel about infrared though, but it definitely makes for an interesting photo.

[Major Nikon]

4. With a film camera, all you need is infrared film and an infrared lens filter

With digital, the most practical way to do it is with a converted camera and it works best with cameras that have a live mode where focusing is done with the digital sensor. Otherwise the difference in the focus point between infrared and the visible spectrum throws off the conventional autofocus or even manual focus. The old manual focus lenses had a red dot on the focus ring which showed you where the infrared focusing point was.

[Major Nikon]

5. Another monochrome infrared

This one was taken at the resort in Costa Rica.

[Adsos Letter]

6. I like this one.

Very weird. I like it!