D60 & InfraRed

[MrGarcia]

Has anyone used the D60 to take any infrared pictures? Or used one of the Hoya IR Filters on the D60?

[Scho]

I've had some success using both the Hoya R72 and B+W 092 filters with the D30. Very important to use RAW mode with long exposure noise reduction enabled and manual exposure mode (using any of the autoexposure modes will cause severe underexposure). Typical exposures for the above filters will be 3-5 sec at f/11 (ISO 100) in bright sun. Some examples here:
http://www.pbase.com/scho/infrared

[Foreside PhotoGraphics]

Hi Scho-

I have been intrigued with infrared for awhile. Now that I have a D60 (and there is no longer an issue with long exposure noise, as there was with the D30), I'd like to take the plunge.

My question is this- what is the difference between the R72 vrs the 092 filters? Under what circumstances would you select one over the other?

And is the resulting image viewable on the camera's LCD after exposure? Forgive me if this appears to be a dumb question, but I really have no experience with infrared photography.

Thanks for your reply.

Gary Shepard
Foreside PhotoGraphics
Maine, USA

[Scho]

Gary,

The Hoya R72 and B+W 092 are both essentially equivalent to the standard Wratten 89B and cut off visible light at the far end of the red spectrum adjacent to the near infrared. I bought the Hoya R72 in 58mm size for my Canon 50mm f/1.4 and the B+W 092 in 72mm size for my Canon 20mm f/2.8 and 135 2L - the choice boiled down to price and not filter characteristics. You can barely see a reddish image in the viewfinder with either filter mounted on a fast lens, but if exposed correctly there is no problem viewing the image after shooting on the lcd. I don't know how good the D60 is for IR - there were some comments in a thread over at dpreview about less sensitivity than the D30.