InfraRed Experiment

IR photography can give you original and intersting images and also let you improve your control over misused paramer like custom white balance.
The necessary equipment is composed by an IR capable digital camera and an IR filter.
In order to test the IR ability of your CCD you have to try the “remote controller test”:
• take your TV set remote controller
• point toward the lens of your camera
• press a button on the remote
• check your LCD to see the infrared light
If you can see a white light in the L.E.D. of the remote, your CCD works properly with IR.
You can find a good IR filter easly in internet – I get my Hoya R72 for less then 20 euro on eBay.

Now that you have the equipment, you need the techniques: white balance and long exposure.

Because you alter, with the IR filter, the color perception of your CCD you need to do a custom white balance, using something green (lawn or a leaf) as a reference.
You can obtain the same effect later in the editing phase (especially if you use RAW format), but I think it’s simpler if you fix it at the beginning.

An IR filter it’s very dark and you will need to use long exposure (even more then 1 second), so be prepared with a tripod or something and exclude your automatic flash light.
I suggest to use a low ISO setting, like 200 or less, in order to reduce the noise.

At least some tricks, based on my personal experience:
• use RAW format
• look for composition with lawn and plants (that in IR images will look white) and sky or water (that looks black)
• when you have a good composition, shot with and without IR filter, so you can merge the IR and the normal image in the editing phase