Problem with G3 IR photos - Too much Noise

I just got my Hoya R72 filter (58mm) today and I took some test IR photographs. Both of these shots were taken with 1.6 shutter speed, ISO 50, and aperture of 3.2 and 3.6 respectively. However, I have some problems I hope you guys and gals can help me with. First off, there is a lot of noise in these photographs, and second, there seems to be some sort of bright glow toward the center of my photograph. Am I doing something wrong?

Do you guys think having a UV filter being attached with the IR filter could case some of these problems?

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

That's a pretty long shutter speed, and I can only assume that you have the camera tripod mounted? You can't hand-hold the camera and expect clear shots. Are you using the delayed timer (2second), or the remote? What model is the camera in? P, M, Av???

CHIA

polloloco81 said:

I just got my Hoya R72 filter (58mm) today and I took some test IR
photographs. Both of these shots were taken with 1.6 shutter speed,
ISO 50, and aperture of 3.2 and 3.6 respectively. However, I have
some problems I hope you guys and gals can help me with. First off,
there is a lot of noise in these photographs, and second, there
seems to be some sort of bright glow toward the center of my
photograph. Am I doing something wrong?
Do you guys think having a UV filter being attached with the IR
filter could case some of these problems?

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

I'm using M mode on a tripod with the remote control.

CHIA said:

That's a pretty long shutter speed, and I can only assume that you
have the camera tripod mounted? You can't hand-hold the camera and
expect clear shots. Are you using the delayed timer (2second), or
the remote? What model is the camera in? P, M, Av???

Click to expand...

The above is Irrelevant the original posters questions.

Noise in an IR photo taken with a DC is not caused by the camera being handheld. Nor does it have anything to do with the exposure mode (P, M, Av).

For answers to your questions go to:

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/Photography_Techniques/Infrared_Photography_01.htm

or..
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=8291

or...
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/infrared/

or....
http://tedfelix.com/IR/

or....
http://www.echeng.com/photo/infrared/

CHIA said:

CHIA

polloloco81 said:

I just got my Hoya R72 filter (58mm) today and I took some test IR
photographs. Both of these shots were taken with 1.6 shutter speed,
ISO 50, and aperture of 3.2 and 3.6 respectively. However, I have
some problems I hope you guys and gals can help me with. First off,
there is a lot of noise in these photographs, and second, there
seems to be some sort of bright glow toward the center of my
photograph. Am I doing something wrong?
Do you guys think having a UV filter being attached with the IR
filter could case some of these problems?

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Phil

All my attempts with my G3 only have a one color tint. Any attempt at color balancing result in a grayscale picture. I have tried all white balance settings including custom set through the IR filter.I use Breezebrowser to convert from Raw.

I was able to get two toned colors with my G1 using the same exact steps????

pquaife said:

The above is Irrelevant the original posters questions.

Noise in an IR photo taken with a DC is not caused by the camera
being handheld. Nor does it have anything to do with the exposure
mode (P, M, Av).

Click to expand...

Hey Rocket Scientist....the pics looked more blurry than noisy to me, which had me wondering if he was by chance taking the pics hand-held. A slim chance, but I've seen stupider things in my life. And if he was using a tripod, but pressing the shutter release manually, then that may have been another possible issue. Thanks for your insightful comments though.

CHIA

I used a custom white balance (which I pointed at the blue sky and press the * button). This allows (for me anyways) a lightblueish tint instead of the normal red that you would get. Once I take the photo, I open it with photoshop and did AUTO LEVEL on it. This then gives me what you would see in my first photograph, which is a red sky and white everything else. I then open the CHANNEL MIXER and mix the red and blue.
--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Yeah, the reason it's blurry is because it was pretty windy out, and with a 1.6 sec shutter speed.

CHIA said:

CHIA said:

The above is Irrelevant the original posters questions.

Noise in an IR photo taken with a DC is not caused by the camera
being handheld. Nor does it have anything to do with the exposure
mode (P, M, Av).

Click to expand...

Hey Rocket Scientist....the pics looked more blurry than noisy to
me, which had me wondering if he was by chance taking the pics
hand-held. A slim chance, but I've seen stupider things in my life.
And if he was using a tripod, but pressing the shutter release
manually, then that may have been another possible issue. Thanks
for your insightful comments though.

CHIA

Click to expand...

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

I'd like to see some pics from a calm day with no blur. I'm really interested in an IR filter for my G3, but have not been convinced from anyone's pics that it's worth it yet. I have seen a few nice ones, but they seem to be very inconsistent. Was the filter expensive?

CHIA

polloloco81 said:

I used a custom white balance (which I pointed at the blue sky and
press the * button). This allows (for me anyways) a lightblueish
tint instead of the normal red that you would get. Once I take the
photo, I open it with photoshop and did AUTO LEVEL on it. This
then gives me what you would see in my first photograph, which is a
red sky and white everything else. I then open the CHANNEL MIXER
and mix the red and blue.
--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

Brad Williamson said:

All my attempts with my G3 only have a one color tint. Any attempt
at color balancing result in a grayscale picture. I have tried all
white balance settings including custom set through the IR filter.I
use Breezebrowser to convert from Raw.

I was able to get two toned colors with my G1 using the same exact
steps????

Click to expand...

The G3 has much stronger IR (removal) filtering than the G1, which also happens to make the G1 just about ideal for IR photography!



Sincerely, Bob the Printer

--- Seek for a calm, not windy day.
--- Use a tripod.
--- Use aperture 8.

--- Do only "conservative" ebv (auto-tone/contrastadjustment/saturation), to avoid "stretching" the histogram.

nevertheless remains the IR-photography a gambling-play. Therefore:

--- make a lot of pictures. Only one or two of twenty will be satisfying. The splendid pictures from others ale also piked out from many and not usual results.

Here an example created with my G3 to comfort you:

'] http://home.t-online.de/home/BAY-RHD/IR-blossom.jpg[/img] [/URL]

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

DSCHUANGDSE/Germany

Dschuang Dse said:

--- Seek for a calm, not windy day.
--- Use a tripod.
--- Use aperture 8.
--- Do only "conservative" ebv
(auto-tone/contrastadjustment/saturation), to avoid "stretching"
the histogram.

nevertheless remains the IR-photography a gambling-play. Therefore:

--- make a lot of pictures. Only one or two of twenty will be
satisfying. The splendid pictures from others ale also piked out
from many and not usual results.

Here an example created with my G3 to comfort you:

[/URL]

[ img]

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

DSCHUANGDSE/Germany

Click to expand...

--
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

DSCHUANGDSE/Germany

CHIA said:

CHIA said:

The above is Irrelevant the original posters questions.

Noise in an IR photo taken with a DC is not caused by the camera
being handheld. Nor does it have anything to do with the exposure
mode (P, M, Av).

Click to expand...

Hey Rocket Scientist...
.the pics looked more blurry than noisy to
me, which had me wondering if he was by chance taking the pics
hand-held. A slim chance, but I've seen stupider things in my life.

Click to expand...

CHIA said:

And if he was using a tripod, but pressing the shutter release
manually, then that may have been another possible issue. Thanks
for your insightful comments though.

Click to expand...

At leaset they will lead the poster to a explanation of his observation.

CHIA said:

CHIA

Click to expand...

--
Phil

polloloco81 said:

Yeah, the reason it's blurry is because it was pretty windy out,
and with a 1.6 sec shutter speed.

Click to expand...

The trees show obvious motion blurr, but the rest of the image is sharp. Thiere is no evidence of camera shake. The noise you see is typical of digital IR photos from cameras that have internal IR filters , as yours does. Check out the links I posted for in depth explanations from people who know their stuff in this area. There are also examples of photos taken with cameras with no internal IR filter, such as a modified Nikon 990 and the Sony F707.

polloloco81 said:

CHIA said:

polloloco81 said:

The above is Irrelevant the original posters questions.

Noise in an IR photo taken with a DC is not caused by the camera
being handheld. Nor does it have anything to do with the exposure
mode (P, M, Av).

Click to expand...

Hey Rocket Scientist....the pics looked more blurry than noisy to
me, which had me wondering if he was by chance taking the pics
hand-held. A slim chance, but I've seen stupider things in my life.
And if he was using a tripod, but pressing the shutter release
manually, then that may have been another possible issue. Thanks
for your insightful comments though.

CHIA

Click to expand...

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

--
Phil

It would be nice to have full Exif information from these pictures (directly from the camera, only resized). Try Raw conversion using Canon Raw Converter or BreezeBrowser (with resize option), where the Exif data is better.
First - it seems that your picture is blurred. You may need manual focusing.
Also your flash is On, even not fired. It would be better to disable the flash.

In windy weather your camera would not be stable even on tripod. Try your test later.
The sun is in 90 degree, it would be better to be in your back.

When using manual mode - try several pictures with different exposures. Later you could choose the best one. Start with T-mode to get idea about the apperture setting-up.

Check my infrared samples at (handheld G1):
http://www.pbase.com/mysamples

Greetengs,
Roumen

polloloco81 said:

I just got my Hoya R72 filter (58mm) today and I took some test IR
photographs. Both of these shots were taken with 1.6 shutter speed,
ISO 50, and aperture of 3.2 and 3.6 respectively. However, I have
some problems I hope you guys and gals can help me with. First off,
there is a lot of noise in these photographs, and second, there
seems to be some sort of bright glow toward the center of my
photograph. Am I doing something wrong?
Do you guys think having a UV filter being attached with the IR
filter could case some of these problems?

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

polloloco81 wrote:
First off,

polloloco81 said:

there is a lot of noise in these photographs, and second, there
seems to be some sort of bright glow toward the center of my
photograph. Am I doing something wrong?
Do you guys think having a UV filter being attached with the IR
filter could case some of these problems?

Click to expand...

Hi there,

I'm not sure I can help you with regard to the noise, except to say that if you mean the chroma noise, it is easily removed in Photoshop.

The bright spot in the center of your shots is a hue shift believed to be somehow linked to the strong hot mirror in the G3. I have seen a few suggestions for how to remove/reduce it such as lowering your in-camera saturation settings, and using tungsten white balance, but based on what I've read, the best way to get rid of it is with a hue adjustment in photoshop.

Doug Thompson has an inventive solution to this problem- he created a "center spot filter" to use on his IR images. Details on how to do this can be found here: http://users.adelphia.net/~popedoug/tips.html

(I don't know Doug, I'm just passing along the info.)

One easily "solution", although limiting, is to simply compose such that the center spot will be less noticable. Here's an example I took the other day:



If you are interested in IR, I suggest you join, or at least take a look here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digital_IR_UV_Photography_Tech/

This is a technical discussion group for people interested in IR and UV photography.

Hope this helps a little.

Regards,
Brian

--
Brian
Gallery: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/spiritmist/My%20Web%20Gallery/index.htm

Wow, the infomation you gave was very useful, thank you very much.

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

polloloco81 said:

Wow, the infomation you gave was very useful, thank you very much.

--
polloloco81
http://www.willowbendstudios.com/dd

Click to expand...

--
Brian
Gallery: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/spiritmist/My%20Web%20Gallery/index.htm

Hi again,

I was thinking about this center spot, and it seems to me that aperture and sun angle should have a lot to do with its presence. I just took a quick look at some of my IR images taken with an S30, and I notice that on the wide-open shots (f2.8) I looked at, I don't see it. I also notice a change with angle- 90 degrees off the sun seems best.

This is just a first observation (and a quick one), so don't quote me. But I will definitely need to check this out further. You might want to as well. Take shots of blank blue sky, for example, using different apertures and at differnt angles and see what you get. If you happen to do this before I do, plesae post your results so that we can learn from them.

Thanks!

Regards,
Brain

--
Brian
Gallery: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/spiritmist/My%20Web%20Gallery/index.htm