Bored of the "regular photography"? Looking to do some interesting alternate photography instead? Then check out infrared photography (IR photography). If you are unsure of what it looks like, here are a few good examples from Flickr.
Photo by Enzio Harpaintner 
Photo by ivhp0 
By marcin nosal White trees, white grass and a surreal landscape, those are the characteristics of IR Photograph. But quite a bit of work needs to be done before you can capture this surreal beauty. Which is why I have written this not-so-secret guide to walk you through photographing the unseen world, like a ninja.
A) WHAT THE HECK IS INFRARED?I shall first dedicate a short section of science to prevent confused ninjas. I am not a rocket scientist either, so I will just touch on things that are important for you photo ninjas to know. As you might already know, light is a form of energy… and super brains call that a form of electromagnetic radiation.
Whatever that means, photo ninjas should know that the light we can see are between 400 nm to 700 nm of the electromagnetic spectrum. Beyond that from 700 nm to 1 mm, is what we call the infrared lights, or what appears to be invisible to us.
The visible light range (Source : Wikipedia) Some of you sharp ninjas may be confused now. If IR is invisible, how are we going to photograph it? Well, not to worry. It would seem that most humans are actually capable of seeing lights into the near IR range of about 1000 nm… and a few freaky humans are capable of even more.
So in IR photography, we are mainly interested in capturing the 700 nm to 1 mm range of IR lights. Geeky ninjas, feel free to check out more science on Wikipedia if you are interested.
B) GEAR REQUIREMENTSTo get started with IR photography, you will need:
Before we jump into IR photography, we need to test if your camera that is capable of capturing light in the IR range. Sadly, not all cameras are built for IR photography. As technology advances, cameras become very capable of filtering out UV and IR lights… which is not what we want.
To test how sensitive your camera is to IR light, we use a very simple, very "traditional" method. All you need is a remote controller (TV, audio, or whichever you can find).
Next, point the remote control at your camera and switch on the live view mode on your camera. Press a few buttons on the remote, and if you see the bulb light up on the camera screen, your camera is good to go for IR Photography. If it doesn't, your camera is probably filtering out all the IR lights.
Once your camera pass this test, it's time to get yourself an IR filter. Which one to get? I use a Hoya R72 – review here, and you can get it from eBay. Alternatively, you can get a decent and affordable Zomei.
D) MODIFYING YOUR OWN CAMERA?If your camera is blind on the IR side, don't despair. There are 2 ways around it. The first way, is to remove the internal "hot mirror" of your camera which filters out the IR lights… I don't recommend this method since it is permanent, and can potentially destroy your perfectly good camera.
Alternatively, you can just buy one of these already modified infrared camera on eBay. They are pretty cheap, and don't risk your own camera.
E) THE SETUP E1) BEST TIME TO SHOOTThe best time to do IR Photography is day time with lots of sunlight and loads of IR light. Yes and it's very hot, you get all sweaty, but you will get to laugh at the silly people who says harsh sunlight is bad for photography.
E2) BEST PLACE TO SHOOTAnywhere outdoor where sunlight can reach. But since IR interestingly turn greens into whites, go find somewhere with lots of greens. Parks will be a good idea.
E3) COMPOSITIONAs with landscape photography, the first thing you need to do in IR photography is to keep a keen eye open for interesting perspectives. All your basic composition rules still apply – Lines, shapes, rule of thirds and symmetry if you wish.
Compose your photo as usual Just a small note and tip on colors in IR photography – it's really hard to estimate how it will turn out. But again, greens in the sunlight will turn out white. Most IR reflective surfaces will turn out white, skies and water remains blue. Alternatively, you can just go black-and-white.
E4) TRIPOD ACTIONWhen you have a good composition, it's time to put the camera on the tripod and remote shutter release. If you are using an IR filter, don't put it on just yet… because once you put it on, all you will see is nothing but a sea of red. So focus 1/3 into the scene and get everything in focus first. Then turn your camera into the manual focus mode, and put on the IR filter.
Just a small suggestion – if you have a UV or clear filter attached, you might want to remove it and not stack the filters. This will less the chance of vignetting… and the UV filter is probably useless. Since the IR filter will block out all visible light AND all UV lights.
F) THE SHOT F1) SHOOT IN RAW!I will stress this in every one of my guides – shoot in RAW. Especially when it comes to IR photography, you are going to need all the data that RAW files can capture. Editing an IR photo in JPG is just going to be very difficult.
F2) SETTINGSForget the auto mode here… the IR filter will simply cause the metering to go wack. Even if you have one of those modified IR cameras, you are probably going to need some adjustments too. So just use manual mode. As for the settings, I have no magic numbers that can "one size fits all". But I shall share my common settings.
Aperture : I am usually stuck between f/5.6 and f/14. I am a landscape photographer, and I need a decent depth-of-field.
Shutter Speed : This is pretty much trial-and-error. As I am on an IR filter, I would say at least 1 second to as long as 1 minute. If you do not want a long exposure, you will have to sacrifice a little bit on ISO and aperture. People on modified IR cameras should not have an issue with slow shutter speeds.
ISO : I usually recommend the ISO to be as low as possible. But in the case of IR photography, pumping the ISO is somehow very useful. Especially when you have a small aperture, and do not want a long shutter speed to register all the moving leaves. I usually keep the ISO anywhere from 100 to 3200.
F3) TAKE A SHOTSet to the mirror up mode if you are on the DSLR, you will want tack sharp photos. If not, there is really nothing too special at this stage. Shoot, chimp, check the exposure, re-adjust the settings and repeat.
A few tips and words of warning though. The leaves will move in the wind, and when it comes to long exposure, you are going to get a motion blur. If you do not want that motion blur, adjust your shutter speed accordingly. If you are working on an IR filter, the RAW image will be red. Nothing wrong with it, you will need some editing work to "fix" it.
The RAW IR image G) EDITING The final stage where the magic happens, and I entirely use Photoshop only to edit the IR photos.
G1) COOKING THE RAW FILE
The magic happens when you do a channel swap. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Channel Swap. If you are lazy, just check the monochrome and you get your instant black-and-white IR photo. How difficult is that?
If you are slightly more hardworking, uncheck that monochrome, cycle through the red/green/blue channels and play with those sliders. Generally, you will want the red and blue channels to be swapped. I.E. The red channel will have less reds and more blues. The blue channel will have less blues and more reds.
Swap the red and blue channels. G3) CLEAN UP, FINISH UP 
It's a white Christmas here in tropical Singapore. Final step, lasso out pieces of rubbish, content aware fill it. Most importantly, slap your watermark on, and that's it! Mission accomplished.
H) WHAT'S NEXT?Most people will probably be baffled by IR photography at first… especially when you are shooting something that you cannot see. But play around with it and keep on trying, the satisfaction when you nail an epic IR photo simply outweighs the pain of the learning process.
So I hope this guide has given you a glimpse into an alternative way of photography. If there are parts that you find confusing in this tutorial, please do comment below. I shall try to answer and improve on it. Now go try IR photography, shoot and have fun!
RECOMMENDATIONSIf you do not already have a copy of Photoshop, click on the link below to check out an offer.
Looking for more awesome and interesting photography? Check out this eBook.
Source: A Step-by-Step Guide to Infrared Photography That Don't Suck
No comments:
Post a Comment