Don’t Overlook Your Digicam’s IR Capability

A digicam’s infrared capability is a feature that’s sometimes overlooked when cameras are reviewed.

If your favorite digital camera doesn’t have IR capability, you may be able to convert it. Check out the “IR Guy’s” website IRDIGITAL.NET tm for information on what cameras can be converted to IR and while there, take a look at some of the breathtaking examples made with his handiwork. After conversion your camera won’t need a filter, making it easier to look through the viewfinder and hand holdable IR shots a possibility. I’ll show you some examples after I receive the Canon EOS digital SLR he’s converting for me right now.

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From Color to Black & White

Grayscale or Black & White photographs are one of the easiest things to produce in Photoshop... well, almost. While you can turn a color image into grayscale, it's good to know a little bit more. Such as how to correct for tonal variations, and get the most out of your image.

First off, no matter how good your digital camera is, the Black & White mode is not, in my opinion, worth it. It makes much more sense to shoot the photograph in color and then turn it into a grayscale image in Photoshop. Why?

Read it here:
http://www.chainstyle.com/tutorials/color_bw.html

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More on Infrared Photography

A tripod is absolutely essential for digital infrared photography. Even though the newest consumer or prosumer digital cameras can be pushed to ISO 320 or more, shutter speeds in daylight will still be on the order of 1/15-1/30 of a second.

You will also need a way to attach the filter to your camera. If your camera is threaded, then it's easy. Buy a gelatin filter holder and some step-up rings, or buy a threaded glass filter (expensive!). If your camera is not threaded, then you'll have to be creative.

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How do they do it?

PowerRetouche is a professional pack of Photoshop plugins (for Mac and Windows), that will help you solve even the most thorny problems of digital photography. They will also make your life with Photoshop much easier and more enjoyable. In all there are 20 plugins designed each to solve a specific problem or manage a specific task with ease. Some are very extensive, others simple, but all very intuitive to use.

- Convert a digital color photo to a B/W grayscale.
- Apply colored filters to the conversion - like lens filters for B/W photography.
- Adjust contrast.
- Tone the B/W image any way you like.
- Use a preset tone to emulate traditional photographic print techniques...
- Sepia, cyanotype, platinum, silver gelatin, kallitype, van dyck, palladium, silver.

Nice examples and a short tutorial can be found here:
http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/articles/powerretouche/toned-photos/

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Let's talk about Toned Photos

http://powerretouche.com

My recommendation to get the best toned Photos is "Powerretouche", a Photoshop PlugIn I bought years ago.

The Toned Photos plugin is one of the kind for emulating traditional techniques. Here we show the original, then Kallitype, Silver Gelatin, Cyanotype.

Check it out! You will love it.

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Is your camera ready for Infrared?

The main accessories for digital infrared photography are a TRIPOD, and an INFRARED FILTER, that will block visible light but let the invisible infrared light pass through to the camera’s sensor.

The tripod is almost always a requirement to stabilize your camera, because the filter is so dense that your exposure will be very long – and camera shake will knock your images out of focus. When you look through an infrared filter, it is just about black, and you can barely see anything except the brightest objects (like the sun!) through it.

But most of all you need to know if your camera is ready for infrared.
There's a crude test that's often recommended to determine if your camera is IR capable. Point a remote control at your camera lens and see if you can see the light in the LCD. If the beam records brightly, then the hot mirror filter on your camera isn't blocking out all the IR and is capable of generating some sort of image. A good result should look bright without a lot of purple. If the light only appears dim or doesn't appear at all, then your camera probably isn't suitable for IR.

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Digital Infrared Photography Equipment

In standard photography, you're capturing the image of objects reflecting light from a source. It's just the same with infrared photography, except that your objects are reflecting IR from a source rather than light.

To take infrared images, you need several pieces of equipment. First, and most importantly, you need a camera that's sensitive to IR. Then, you need an IR pass filter to block visible radiation and allow IR to hit the CCD. Finally, you need a light source to emit infrared radiance, and you also need a tripod. We'll step you through the equipment necessary to get started.

CCDs are naturally sensitive to near IR. However, hot mirror filters are added to the camera to block it because IR can contaminate the colors when you're shooting normal images. The better the quality of the hot mirror, the worse the camera will be at taking IR images because more IR is being blocked from reaching the CCD. This isn't saying that the camera is bad. In fact, the opposite is true, as it stands to reason that a better quality hot mirror filter improves the camera's abilities in standard light situations.

A lot of info about Digital Infrared Photography Equipment can be found here
http://www.nature-photography-central.com/DigitalInfraredPhotographyEquipment.html

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What is Infrared Light

IR film is sensitive to light just below what we can see in the visible spectrum. So let's start at the basics and talk about infrared light.

As the light spectrum goes, we have blue, green, yellow, orange, and then on to red and if we keep going down the line, infrared. Think of it, perhaps, as a very dark red.

We perceive different types of energy with our senses. Heat we feel with our skin, sound with our ears and light with our eyes. Our eyes are tuned to a certain area of the light spectrum and we can see from deep blue to deep red. On either side there is energy, but our eyes can't see it. Trying to describe with words to someone what light is that they can't see is exactly like trying to describe color to someone who is colorblind. That's kind of what we face.

One could argue that it really doesn't have a color because we can't see it. We call something green not because it reflects green light, but because our brain perceives it as green. We'd have to invent a new name for the color below red in the light spectrum if we suddenly were able to see it. I guess that's why they call it infra-red.

Robert Hall has put up a lot of effort to explain it all, and his site is a pleasure to visit
http://www.roberthall.com/

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Infrared Photography with a Digital Camera

Due to the arrival of digital photography, we can take infrared pictures whenever we please, mixing them with "normal" ones, and see results on the spot, tweaking the settings to our hearts' desires...

All depends, of course, on how your camera sensor array reacts to the infrared — and, depending on the filter you are using, to the far red end of the visible spectrum.

At the first glance, a monochrome picture taken in infrared may look similar to just another black and white photograph. And then you start seeing differences: objects which are bright in visible light (like sky) look dark here, while some of those which are "normally" dark (green foliage) acquire a bright glow. An unusual and eerie feeling.

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What about heat?

Thermal radiation will not be recorded by infared film; infrared films are not sensitive to a long enough wavelength to show such things as heat patterns.

Heat sources from objects such as engines put out most of their radiated energy in the form of far-infrared, in the wavelength range of 10-100 microns or so. To detect this you need special infrared sensors, and generally they have to be cooled with liquid nitrogen or other temperature regulators that can get you well below 0 C. (Just as the inside of a camera has to be dark, the body of an IR detector intended to detect heat has to be cool ...)

Another way to look at this is:
if in a dark kitchen you turn your electric stove element onto high and heat it up to the point just before it begins glowing red hot, that is when you finally have enough IR waves being produced in the right wavelength to make a photograh.

On the other hand, according an ancient copy of the Kodak "Infrared and Ultraviolet Photography" book (1961), IR can be used to photograph self-luminant objects as cool as 250 degrees C. You could try to photograph hot car parts (exaust system, brakes).

Heat will however tend to increase the fogging of the film.Keep film as cool as possible and avoid leaving in hot places like in a car on a hot day.

Will the heat from my hands fog the film in the changing bag?
Only if your hands are on fire! (thanks to George Smyth for that gem)

Don't forget to visit
http://www.cocam.co.uk/

Their articles are a great read!

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Why Infrared?

I found this nice article about infrared photography, and got hooked.
http://www.cocam.co.uk/CoCamWS/Infrared/INFRARED.HTM#INTRO

Infrared photography uses films that are sensitive to both the light we can see and some of the longer length (above 700 nm) infra-red radiation. The film is also sensitive in the UV region (below 400 nm). In the case of the Kodak HIE film it is sensitive to near-infrared radiation out to approximately 1000 nm wavelength (1 micron). There are scientific uses for such films which include forensic applications and aerial crop and forest surveys. The film is also used in the restoration and investigation of paintings, but here the focus is on expanding our range of picture making media.

Some people just try infrared once as a novelty, others get hooked on the effects and exploit it as their main film, especially Kodak's High Speed Infrared black and white film.
Everything looks odd on colour IR film. The following remarks relate to black and white IR film.

Vegetation and sky look very different from normal therefore incorporating either or both into your pictures will take advantage of the effect of IR film. Vegetation comes out bright, clear sky comes out dark - clouds stay light.

Skin also looks different on IR film (veins are revealed under human skin) which can be used for interesting portraits. Eyes appear black which can look a little menacing, surreal or alien.

Graveyard shots - grass will go almost white leaving the tombstone floating in an eerie space, similarly for standing stones.
Derelict buildings covered in creepers - again the contrast of stone and vegetation. See Pete Schermerhorn's excellent article on castles in Ireland.
People on the beach - sky and skin, water reflecting sky
Nudes in a landscape - skin and vegetation and/or sky
Haze reduction - only reduces blue haze, but try it
Hot houses - vegetation
People with sunglasses - it is sometimes possible to see the eyes behind seemingly opaque sunglasses.
The effect with sunglasses is easily explained: (gradually) grey filters used for normal optics (photofilters, sunglasses) don't have any effect on infrared light; this non-effect is also seen with polaroid filters so polaroid sunglasses appear transparent).

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Classic Black and White Photography

This is also a place for me to share my black and white photography as I produce it. I find the black & white versions of these photos gives them that classic feel. I hope you enjoy them.

Experimenting with black and white is sometimes a challenge. I've started carrying two cameras with me: one set to black and white and one set to color. I know I can easily change the pictures to black and white later, but it looks better when taken in black and white originally. There really isn't a competition between Black and White or Color. It's just a choice that any photographer makes as part of the creative process. And there are times when B&W suits my creative vision better.
I guess that comes from starting my shooting back as a kid.

I love looking at great color pictures, whether vibrant or subdued, but I just love creating black and white images.
Well, I just love photography.

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What Changed the Rules for Black and White Photography?

For the enthusiast photographer processing black and white film, little has changed since the introduction of the 35mm film Leica camera in 1925. For something like 80 years, black and white photography has been dominated by what I call the Silver Standard - the air dried, glossy, fiber-based gelatin silver print.

Inkjet printing has changed all the rules. It's time for us to let go of the Silver Standard and move on. It'll be ok. Really. Everything is going to be fine. Variable Contrast papers now dominate the market, allowing a printer to vary the contrast of the material across an extreme range.

Of course I admire Ansel Adams. More than any other influential American of his epoch, Adams believed in both the possibility and the probability of humankind living in harmony and balance with its environment.

See some of his best shots here:
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/adams/index.html

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Color to Black and white Conversion ...

Yes, I know… It isn’t as if it is rocket science... Press apple + U, and the picture is nice and de-saturated. But this also means that you have no control whatsoever about the final result of the image.

Instead, a little bit of knowledge how RGB colors work will allow you to create some pretty impressive black and white photos from digital files…
So what are the factors of a successful black and white conversion?

There is really just one key concept to get your head around: You have to map detail contained in color (hue and saturation) contrast into luminosity (brightness) contrast - that is, if you want to see that detail in the resulting black and white picture!

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Fan Mail

Quote from an email I got last night:

The way you capture the atmosphere of the Photos is beautiful. What a portfolio !! You have a terrific eye and a great taste for beauty!! I have you on my "interesting persons" list, and often visit looking for new stuff. Ironically, every time I visit I end up looking (again) at every photo in your portfolio. It always gives me great pleasure. You have an impressive body of work with depth, texture, and mystery. Each shot is a jewel. So many of your images are worthy to be framed and on the wall -- where photographs are meant to live. What I find most impressive about your works is the skillful integration of movement - something that I think many of us would find incredibly difficult to accomplish without the aid of photo editing software.

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Free Adobe Photoshop Basics Class for Beginners

Learning Adobe Photoshop can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be! Adobe Photoshop Basics is a free online class consisting of eight self-paced lessons that will give get you up and running with a good start. It won't teach you all there is to know about Photoshop--that can take years--but it will give you a solid foundation that you can build on though online tutorials, third-party books, or other training.

Here you can sign up for lessons by email
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps5out.htm

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Color and Computer Images

This explains computer images and color pretty good:
http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa031703a.htm

Images displayed on computer screens are composed of lines of coloured dots we call pixels (short for 'picture elements'.) On a typical computer, each of these pixels is made up of three dots, one red, one green and one blue (RGB). By varying the intensity of these three dots, a wide range of colours can be produced. The obvious way to store an image in a computer system is simply a list of these values for each dot in order, pixel by pixel and line by line. At the start of the file there also needs to be some other data about the file, perhaps for example giving the lengths of the line.

For our normal 24 bit colour display, each pixel is represented in the file by 3 values, each of 8 bits, corresponding to the RGB dots. Since 8 bits is one byte, there are three bytes for each pixel. This means image files are relatively large; even a small on screen image, perhaps 300x200 pixels, contains 60,000 pixels and would need 180,000 bytes.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but typically a text file this size might hold 20,000 words! For many purposes simple files such as this are too large, and formats that can compress image data - such as JPEG are used. Other formats are also often compressed.

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