Infrared photography

When these infrared images were uploaded to the Snapped: Wild theme by Margaret Hamwood my reaction was 'WOW!'

I knew something special was going on and I had so many questions. I contacted Margaret to ask how she achieved this style of photography.

I'm a landscape photographer, I dabble in other types of photography but it's landscapes that grab me and what usually evokes an emotion in me.

How do you do infrared photography?

The easiest and cheapest way to do it is get an old DSLR that is more sensitive to infrared light and the use of an infrared filter. Even though it's a cheap way it is a little cumbersome, as you need to use the camera on a tripod.

The infrared filter that is used is extremely dark as it cuts out all visible light and only lets the infrared light through. You basically have to compose and focus before putting the filter on the camera and due to the darkness of it you end up with a fairly long shutter speed.

The most convenient way is to get a camera converted or do it yourself, but that is more expensive and doing it yourself requires you to pull the camera apart to get to the sensor and that's not something I was comfortable with.

Basically all digital cameras have what is called a hot mirror in front of the sensor to block infrared light and to only let visible light through. As the technology in digital cameras has improved so has the hot mirror in blocking infrared. 

That is why an old DSLR is needed with the filter method; its hot mirror isn't as good at blocking all infrared light.

Converting a camera requires the hot mirror to be taken out of the camera and an infrared filter put in its place in front of the sensor. The most common infrared that's done is 720nm, which is the wavelength of light.

There are different wavelength filters you can put into a camera to get slightly different results. I attempted it a few years ago with on old DSLR and using infrared filters, but it was a fiddly technique and as I didn't have the money, or a second DSLR to convert.
I gave up the idea of infrared photography until just recently when I had the opportunity to buy a second hand camera already converted.

So I have only been taking these images in the last couple of weeks.

How did you get into this type of photography?

The very first time I saw this photography was on a website that promoted all forms of art including photography. I was hooked the instant I saw it. Luckily the photographer that took the images supplied tutorials on the technique and there's also lots of information on the internet.

What colours does it change?

It doesn't exactly change colours, but more records a certain wavelength of light that is invisible to us. The process of capturing these types of images is fairly simple, but the most important step is to take a white balance reading of green foliage before taking any shots. This will insure that you get the white foliage that is typical of infrared photography.

The next main ingredient you need is bright sunlight. Images will still work with lesser sunlight, but the brighter the sunlight, the brighter the foliage will be and in Australia we are lucky to have plenty of bright strong sunlight.

Infrared photography also lets you shoot in a time of day that in Australia, isn't very good for visible light photography. The image straight out of the camera is more of a dark sepia tone and my image of Dumbleton weir is an example of this.

The blue and white images are done with photo editing, a technique called channel mixing. If your editing programme has a channel mixer then you can achieve this effect with your infrared photography.

Open the channel mixer and select the red output channel. You then move the red slider to 0% and move the blue slider to 100%. Next select the blue output channel and move the red slider to 100% and the blue slider to 0%.

My camera is a 720nm conversion and because the channel swap doesn't quite get the deep blue I like, I adjust the hue and saturation until I get the effect I like.

What is your favourite thing to shoot in this style and what is the best picture you've captured.

As the effect is best seen with foliage, landscape is where it's at for me.

Capturing people in infrared is quite strangely beautiful and given the right circumstances can produce some very compelling images. I have seen some wedding photography done with infrared and they are very ethereal and beautiful.

I've only just recently acquired my camera and haven't taken a lot of great images, it's really hard to pick the best so far. I have such a love for the genre, almost every image I have taken thus far is a keeper.

I have a huge love of trees so the subject matter lends itself beautifully to infrared.