Infrared, the Digital Way ...

If you’ve ever tried shooting and processing infrared film, you know what a pain in the aperture it is to deal with. You have to load the camera in complete darkness, guess wildly about the exposure settings, process the film, and then cross your fingers that at least one or two shots turned out the way you had hoped. The results could be stunning, but they came at a painful price.

Digital photography has changed all that. Not only is the finicky film handling a thing of the past, (not to mention the film is incredibly difficult to locate now) but you also now get to preview your infrared images on the LCD monitor before taking the shot. And the best part? They will look every bit as beautiful as their film counterparts, as you can see in the images on these pages, which were shot with a converted Nikon D70 digital camera. These images were all shot after 12 pm. Most photographers are diving for cover at this time of day—that is, unless they’re shooting infrared.

Infrared photography deals with the spectrum of light that you can’t see but that your digital camera can. If you buy a filter to eliminate the normal light rays and capture only the infrared rays, you can add this look to your photographic bag of tricks.

The first thing you’ll notice in infrared photography is that the blue sky goes dark and that most trees turn very light. Glare is minimized, giving your pictures an eerie clarity.

Mount Rudle, Vermillion Lake, Banff, Colour Infrared Photo by Dave Brewin

Mount Rundle, Vermillion Lake, Banff
Colour Infrared Photo by Dave Brewin Photography

The Infrared Filter Method

A popular filter for digicam infrared photography is the Hoya R72. If your camera accepts filters, then go get an R72 at the camera store, attach it to your camera, and look at a brightly lit scene in the LCD viewfinder. You’ll know right away if your camera is suitable for this kind of shooting. You can test the “infraredness” of your camera by pointing a remote control toward the lens and seeing if the beam registers the camera’s LCD monitor.

What’s interesting is that older digital cameras often work better than newer models. Over the years, many camera makers have added internal filtering to improve overall picture quality (color, that is) that unfortunately hampers the camera’s infrared capability. For example, my Canon G1 takes great infrared shots, but the G2, G3, and G5 don’t perform nearly as well. This is a great argument for hanging on to your older digicams, because you never know what they’ll be good for up the road.

Tip: Other older models that shoot great infrared shots include the Nikon CoolPix 800 and 950, Canon S10, Olympus C-3000 series, and Kodak DC 260. Many others also work well. If you want to test a few cameras you have on hand, try this. Line them up and activate their LCD monitors in Record mode. Take a TV remote control and point it directly into the lens of each camera while pressing any button, such as the channel changer. The camera that displays the brightest light from the remote on the LCD monitor is your leading candidate for infrared photography.

4 sheds
Colour Infrared Photo by Dave Brewin Photography

The IR Converted Digital Camera

Actually converting a camera to capture infrared is by far my favorite solution, and not that expensive. The conversion is accomplished by replacing the infrared filter in your camera either with a piece of clear glass (to make your camera sensitive to the full spectrum) or with a filter that blocks out visible light (to make your camera a true infrared camera—note that with this option you will not be able to use your camera for shooting regular images). This can be a great use for an older camera that is gathering dust around your house. The infrared filter is exposed during sensor cleaning, and if you've ever seen it you'll see right away that replacing it is a tricky operation at best.

Luckily, there are professional services to step in. Jim Chen is an industry leader and does an excellent job of converting cameras—whether point-and-shoot or D-SLR. The autofocus and metering work correctly all the time, although sometimes a little exposure compensation is needed—after all, the meters are designed for visible light, not infrared.

I carry a Nikon D70 that Jim Chen converted, so it is an easy matter to grab it and shoot infrared. The infrared conversion lets me take these photographs without a tripod (though I very rarely shoot without it from habit), even capture sporting-event shots or other motion images. The resulting images are tack-sharp, and the ease of use really makes it fun to shoot in infrared rather than visible-light mode.

Some Informative Digital IR Links

The webpages written on Digital Infrared Photography are almost endless however below I have included a few that I have found most informative

To Summarize

It took a long time before I could let the film go and switch over to digital but since I did, it has opened up a whole new photography world for me. Digital Infrared opened it up even wider.

Now, take your camera with a Hoya R72 filter or you’re converted to IR camera out into the bright sunlight. The best conditions for infrared shooting are a blue sky, puffy clouds, and some trees in the landscape. Mount your camera on a tripod, put it in aperture or shutter priority mode and shoot!