G3 and Infrared

[DaveB]

It's not particularly sensitive in the IR range, but here are some pictures shot with the G3 and the Hoya R72 infrared filter.

http://personal.monad.net/~bourdelai...nada/index.htm

[drisley]

DaveB wrote:
It's not particularly sensitive in the IR range, but here are some pictures shot with the G3 and the Hoya R72 infrared filter.

http://personal.monad.net/~bourdelai...nada/index.htm

Hey some really nice shots there!
I guess the only drawback is long exposure times?

I'm in Canada too. How much did you pay for the filter?

[tonymac]

How long are your exposures? Do you use a custom white balance? Do you do a lot of post-processing in Photoshop? If so, what do you typically do?

I've been using an RM90 (I think) filter, which blocks a lot more of the IR than the R72. I think I need to get an R72. Very nice shots, BTW.

[DaveB]

The Hoya filter costs about $40-$45 US I think.

Exposures were in the range of 1 -2 seconds using manual focus and stopped wide open.

I shoot in RAW which yields a very red image. I don't think I do a custom white balance on conversion, but that might be worth playing with. Instead I convert with BreezeBrowsers' RAW converter to TIFF.

In Photoshop 6.0 I do Autolevels, which is key, then desaturate or convert to GreyScale. I like to use the desaturate thingy because I will often leave a little color cast for effect.

Then I use FM USM routine to sharpen a bit and then save as a JPEG. Anything larger that an 800 x 600 JPG shows too much noise and stuff so I keep them relatively small. That's why I'm interested in whether the 10D or Digital Rebel is more/less sensitive to infrared. The greater available ISO with the SLR's should make a difference too.

[tonymac]

Interesting. With the RM90, my exposures are 10 or 15 seconds wide open. The results are pretty good, although noisy. I shoot in RAW with a custom white balance. This leaves reddish and bluish tints in the images. I convert the RAW file to a 16bit TIFF, adjust levels, desaturate and USM.

I may go ahead and get the Hoya R72 filter since it makes such a big difference in exposure times.

[polloloco81]

Very nice shots!


Here is a gallery of some G3 color IR shots I took last summer using Hoya R72.

http://www.pbase.com/polloloco81/infrared

Some problems I'd like to point out about IR photography with Canon G3 and G5.

-Very high noise.
-I did not notice this in your shots, but in pretty much all of my shots, I have a circular glow that is in the middle of every shot. This is not so noticable if I have a central composition (for example: trees), but if there is nothing but sky in the middle of the photo, the glow can be very obvious.

[DaveB]

I didn't notice any circular glow on the pictures you posted Polloloco.

I would imagine that the long exposure times would accentuate any kind of vignetting inherent in that lens. That might be part of it.

Gandini's page of IR pictures makes me wish I had a G1 which, lacking the hot mirror IR filter, shoots much finer pictures in the IR spectrum. I'd need something better if I wanted to print any IR's.

One good thing about IR is that it gives me something to do with the camera when the sun is high in the sky, the shadows intense and conditions are unsuitable for conventional photography.

[yallcome]

Very nice pics, Dave,

Wish I could get same results, but I always end up with a large "bloom" of light in the center of the frame when I use my R72. I don't get it. Are the cameras -G3 - this different in behavior from one to the next?

m2

DaveB wrote:
It's not particularly sensitive in the IR range, but here are some pictures shot with the G3 and the Hoya R72 infrared filter.

http://personal.monad.net/~bourdelai...nada/index.htm