Canon 10D & Infrared?

[Gibmeister]

Does the Canon 10D allow you to take pictures with a Hoya R72 Infrared Filter? Are there specific settings for the camera to get the best results?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

I think I have read the answer is NO because there's something that blocks IR getting to the sensor in the 10D.

Regards,

[P.C. Plod]

The D60 is similar but the D30 gives good results with this filter. Glad I kept my D30 now!

[Longwatcher]

I was looking a DP review topic (forgot to copy link) and they are saying that the 10D with a Hoya R72 filter can do IR. I did find something on the D60, but they only used one type of filter and got very poor results.

So I sent in a technical question to Canon.

They will probably reply that the 10D is not intended to do IR photography. Which of course will not answer my question, but I had to ask.

Will let you all know if I get a useable response.

[Trivia: one site I found showed an UV image with the D60, but not very good (as in not much range on the UV side)]

[teddynet]

I tried this as soon as I got my 10D and it doesn't seem to see infrared at all. What I did get with a very long exposure was a normal but pink tinted pic that was still very dark with none of the characteristics of infrared that I get with my S1.

I was pleasantly surprised to note however that the AF still worked even with the R72 in place!

Rich.

[dciobota]

Very easy to test this, get your infrared TV remote aim at camera, hold a button down (like volume +/-) and take a pic at a fairly slow shutter speed. If you see the led on the remote lit up in the pic, voila! Your camera can see infrared. :-)

Hope this helps,

Daniel

[Longwatcher]

dciobota wrote:
Very easy to test this, get your infrared TV remote aim at camera, hold a button down (like volume +/-) and take a pic at a fairly slow shutter speed. If you see the led on the remote lit up in the pic, voila! Your camera can see infrared. :-)

Hope this helps,

Daniel


This is not necessarily true. It is quite possible that the IR remote is transmitting at a longer wavelength then the sensor can dectect.

Infrared spectrum goes from approximately 700nm to 12000nm. Human eyes go from about 400-700. Best guess for the 10D sensor seems to be 360-780.(however I have not yet gotten a response from Canon - my guess is based on the amount of response from a UV image and statements that the Hoya R72 at 720nm works, but the B+W 093 at 830nm does not)

IR remotes can transmit easily from 750nm to 2500nm (I have seen multiple sources which say they usually operate around 850-950nm, but can operate as high as 3000nm and as low as 750nm), so if it is 800nm or more the camera may not see it, but the camera still detects IR from say 700 to 780nm.

As you can see not necessarily a good test to use.

[Trivia nm=nanometer]

[lziering]

Althought it is not the same thing, you can try to take a shot normally and then in Photoshop use the channel mixer to convert the shot to B&W. Click "monochrome" and then set the values so that you are using 70-100% red channel and the balance blue and/or green channel to get the total to 100%. The result will look a lot like IR.

[SharenKB]

Has anyone tried shifting the color temp balance on a 10D or 1Ds or 1D to see if you can get an infrared effect?

[lziering]

I don' t think shifting color balance is going to work. That will only shift the colors on a blue-yellow axis.

[Longwatcher]

The response to my Question to Canon.
I especially like the last line.

...........................Cut and Paste quote...........
Dear Tim,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Unfortunately, the specification you've requested is not published. We
regret this inconvenience.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Jenny
Product Support Representative

Customer Satisfaction... The most important product we support!
........................end quote...........

I have replied that they should try again..Like actually ask somebody who designed the camera this time ;-)

I can't help but be ammused.

[dciobota]

Here's someone who's shot some IR pics with the R72 filter:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=4942168


Daniel

[slejhamer]

Those examples look about as good as shots taken with a G3 ...

Which is to say, they look terrible compared to what you get with a G1.

[Gibmeister]

Thanks everyone for the input. I just picked up the Hoya R72 filter. I think I will play around with some different settings and let you know how it turns out.

Gib

[Gibmeister]

Tim,

Thanks for the chuckle. You wonder sometimes if people even think about what they are doing.

Gib

[Chris™]

Hi everybody,

in the meantime I saw stunning IR images taken with the 10D and a Hoya R72. The 10D seems to work nice, but is about 3 f-stops less sensitive as the D30.

Check this example:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=5251498

Greetings from Germany

Chris™

[Andy Somnifac]

longwatcher wrote:
The response to my Question to Canon.
I especially like the last line.

...........................Cut and Paste quote...........
Dear Tim,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Unfortunately, the specification you've requested is not published. We
regret this inconvenience.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Jenny
Product Support Representative

Customer Satisfaction... The most important product we support!
........................end quote...........

I have replied that they should try again..Like actually ask somebody who designed the camera this time ;-)

I can't help but be ammused.

Tim,

Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate here, but maybe the case indeed is that the spec indeed isn't published? If it's not published there could be a reason for it, and asking someone else would not get any more usable information. Just a thought, rather than immediately jumping on them.

Andy
www.somnifacient.us

[Longwatcher]

Published to me is that they have not let everyone in the world know it by putting it out on the net,
However, someone at Canon is going to have the data. They would almost have to, just from an engineering design stand point.

I suspect it has not been published, because they don't feel that anyone would need the data.

A good company however would go find the answer, if a valid question and they have the data, because someone might ask that question again.

If they have not actually tested for that, then that is an acceptable answer; but I would find it unlikely.

If I can ever connect up with my friend at NASA Langley (he travels even more then I do), we can probably find out as he has access to the equipment needed and it would take about 20 minutes to find out.

What is common these days is that Customer service reps are given a script and if you ask a question that is not on the script, more then half the time you get a "I'm sorry, but I don't have an answer to that". The good companies will respond with "I don't know, but will pass it up the chain until I get an answer". Both Hassleblad and Adobe customer service did this, when I recently had questions that were hard to answer. I don't ask easy questions when I call, because I usually try to find the answer out for myself before bothering them. I would expect Canon to respond similiarly to a request from someone who bought a $1500 product from them.

[Trivia: I remember about 5 years ago when using a graphics software that the manual said I could do something, but it did not say how I could do it. I called up the software's customer service and told them this. The first thing the said was, "you mean you actually read the manual before calling". Apparently, I was the first one to call in since the software had been released that had actually taken the time to read the manual. He had to ask someone else, but they responded with it was an error in printing the manual and all I had to do was use the "alt" key to do what I wanted. I suspect, given the above, that is why most companies have just given up on extensive manuals explaining their software and the companies just use scripts for customer service, ansers 99% of the customers who call.]

[Andy Somnifac]

longwatcher wrote:
Published to me is that they have not let everyone in the world know it by putting it out on the net,


I'm certainly not arguing with you here, but I'd guess that most companies are going to be rather tight lipped about what information about their chips they want released to the public. I don't doubt that this is something that has been measured, but that does not mean they're going to let everyone know the spec. That is what I meant when I said that asking someone else may not yield any more usable information.

Andy
www.somnifacient.us