Infrared with the M system

After testing a lot of infrared lens and filter combinations, my favorite combo has become shooting my full-spectrum-converted M200 with the kit 15-45 IS STM lens and a Tiffen #47 (cobalt blue) filter. This is a dual-band filter which passes blue light but blocks visible green and red, passing IR below about 700 nm.

For some reason, the EF-15-45 kit lens is very well suited for infrared photography. It appears to be sharper in IR light than visible light, which is the opposite of the other native wides I've tried with IR (EF-M 22mm f2, EF-M 18-55, EF-M 18-150, Rokinon 12mm f2, Sigma 16mm f1.4) which are less sharp in IR with blurring and more CA in the corners than in visible light.

I also particularly like the color rendering of the Tiffen Blue 47 filter on the m200's full spectrum sensor. it's easy to compose false-color IR right in the camera without color swapping, and the results need a lot less color correction than other lenses and filters I've tried. All I do is white balance the camera on something gray before shooting.

Here's a shot from this morning with the Tiffen #47 and the EF-M 15-45, preceded by a similar shot with the Sigma 16mm f1.4 lens with a ZB2/BG3 blue filter (a dual-band filter like a Tiffen #47 but more violet than blue, needs a slight hue shift) and then a similar image taken with an unmodified m200 with the 15-45 lens. The IR #47 15-45 image I really like as the foliage appears to be 'luminous' -- it doesn't have the same impact in the other images.

The Sigma lens has an IR hot spot so I shot at f4 for some depth of field, but still had to do a lot of extra processing to minimize the effect of the hot spot. All processed in DxO PL5 and downsampled to 4k size.

Full-spectrum M200, Sigma 16mm f1.4, ZB2/BG3 dual-band blue + IR filter, f4, 1/200s, ISO 160

Full-spectrum M200, EF-M 15-45mm IS STM, Tiffen dual-band 47 filter Blue + IR, 15mm, f8, 1/60s, ISO 100

Stock M200< EF-M 15-45mm IS STM, 16mm, f5, 1/200s, ISO 100

I like the Tiffen #47 as it renders those beautiful royal blues and bright yellows almost right out of the camera, with nice separation and contrast. The blues in visible light imaging need a lot of processing and/or a polarizer to come out like that. Also the #47 shows those deep blues in water and other objects' reflections in a way that other IR filters and visible light shots don't.