i a deviation an album for images or just one image?
-sorry i'm a newbie

As a fellow IR photography newbie, I have been scourging the internet for answers to my ridiculous IR attempts over the last few weeks too. When ever I was shooting IR (EOS 50d + 17-85mm f3.5-5.6 usm) my images had always come out with an incredibly red hue and I didn't get what I was doing. My exposure was correct and my subjects were absolutely bathing in bright sunlight. But after I looked around I discovered the three main errors I was making.

1. You MUST MUST MUST set CWB (custom white balance) to get rid of those red hues. The best way to do this I found was to shoot a patch of bright, sunny green grass *with IR filter ON*. Dont overexpose it, but expose it as best you can to make it clear and then set CWB to this image. Your images should have much better colour information.

2. There is specific post processing work that needs to be done to achieve beautiful IR images like those you see online.
- Firstly, you have to swap the red and blue channels in colour balance (in the red channel slide the red to 0 and the blue to 100, and in the blue channel slide the blue to 0 and the red to 100). This will make your skies that much nicer blue colour.
- Secondly, you have to manually adjust levels. In the levels adjustment, go to individual red green blue channels and sliiiiiide the black and white level slide in to where the colour information begins on the histogram for each one. This is what makes your images really pop. ([link])
- Thirdly, sometimes your images will need a slight hue/balance adjustment to correct any colour casts the image may have, or a bit of a burn/dodge here and there. Voila, infrared photos.

3. Don't discount the importance of both the composition of your photo and the quality of the lens. Like Jerry said, good subject matter is one of the most important factors in capturing IR images. It isn't about how hot or what colour your subject is, to get a good IR photo the subject should be very brightly swathed in sunlight. In addition to this, some lenses work well and others don't. Poor lenses will often leave a hotspot in the middle of the images. As a rough guide, older EF lenses work best (Canon cameras, obviously.) Take a look at this page for more. [link]

Hope this helps someone!

- Rollo

(oh and ps, some camera models are better than others when it comes to IR. To test your camera for sensitivity, turn it to BW mode, open up live view if you have it (if not just try and take a picture), and point your standard tv remote at a plain old lens pressing a couple buttons. You should see the ir transmitter on the remote flashing kind of grey when you press it. If it does, your camera should take some ok photos. If not... good luck )

Remember, IR is all about absorbion and reflection of the IR light, not heat or color. Also, the focus is different, you must have a lens that has the IR focus marking, usually a dot to one side of the main focus markings. Get your focus without the filter first, then manually turn it to the IR mark, screw on the filter. Canon and Nikon have the most aggresive hot mirrors on their DSLRs. They are made to be very effective at cutting IR and UV. As a matter of fact Nikon will cut their's at around 820nm, which is also known as Hydrogen Alpha and is at the limit of visual range of us mere humans. Canon isn't as aggresive but without modifing the camera, you'll still need longer exposures. With my old Nikon D80, I was usually around 8 seconds or so using a R72 cutoff in midday sun under clear skys.

For outdoor shots, the brighter the sunlight the better-foliage will turn white. People will turn sort of pasty on the skin, but if exposed correctly you can get the blood vessels showing thru, the shallow ones anyway. Most natural fibers reflect IR like foliage while artificial absorbs the IR. Hence, if you have a woman walking out of a store wearing a cotton dress, it will turn opaque white. While another woman wearing a nice nylon/spandex/lycra outfit will show up translucent, yes, in some cases you can see thru it with detail (try getting a sony digital vid cam, turn it on the night setting, apply a R72 filter and shoot during the day, even swimsuits become translucent).

For indoor shots, I wouldn't recommend it much, it will take much longer exposures and will be contrasty, very narrow tonal values from highlight to shadow. Without going out and buying a special IR emitting light, you need to have a uncovered floresant lighting, they really put out the IR. Ordinarly these lights give off a green hue in normal photography but as long as you don't shoot them too directly you should get decent IR lighting.

Hope this helps. Look in my gallery for 'Other Worlds', it was shot using a R72 cutoff on a un-modified Nikon. It was very red as you might suspect, but I swapped channels then dodged and burned the hell out of it.

Have fun,
Jerry

also, You will rely struggle to get shots inside, you rely need sunlight to get well exposed images =]

Long exposures are a must when shooting IR on Canon DSLRs. As a standard feature, Canon installs IR cut filters directly over the image sensor. They're meant to absorb infrared light to produce accurate full color results. Not so great if you're intentionally shooting in infrared though. It is possible, it just takes a much longer exposure.

There are places that will remove the IR cut filter if you plan to do lots of this kind of photography. They can even replace the IR cut with a sensor-sized IR pass filter, like your Hoya 72, if you want to convert your DSLR into an Infrared Only camera. The procedure can be expensive though and would definately void your warranty. Lately I've been thinking of converting my old Rebel Digital to IR only.

Hi, it sounds like you're using the cameras meter for shutter time.

1: long exposures
2: it'll only be great outside.

I suggest you read this journal about IR: [link]

Shutter speed for filtered IR are in the range of 10-15 seconds on a bright day outside. You have to use manual mode and a tripod. The camera can take IR images, you just need to use the correct settings.

For your white balance, find a patch of green grass (set the exposure correctly), focus so that the grass is blurred to a green wash, and take a custom white balance reading.