Perils of Infrared Photography

A brief introduction: since December I've been using my new E-M5 II with enormous pleasure. I haven't had this much fun with a camera since film days (which weren't really all that long ago for me). I didn't make the customary announcement before because I've been too busy hacking my way through the complexities of this little beast. Suffice to say that all the hype is true, and I now consider myself entrenched in the m43 camp. In addition to the camera I possess a Panasonic 14-42 kit zoom, a Voigtlander 25, and a bunch of adapted Minolta MC/MD lenses, all of which treat me very well.

I wish to ask questions concerning employing this camera for infrared photography. I do so in this forum because A) there doesn't seem to be a forum dedicated to the general topic, and B) as I'll only be using the E-M5 II for the time being, I wondered if there might be camera specific tips. So, bear with me, even if my questions and observations sound like the usual stuff.

I'm not accomplishing a great deal with IR. An unconverted camera, mated to a Hoyer R72 filter, creates odd enough images, some of them quite good in black in white, but attempts to do color inevitably fail to a greater or lesser extent. I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm doing it wrong--will take that as a given--but what exactly?

Internet information, some of it most authoritative sounding, is full of statements like "Simply do this," "simply do that," only in my case simply apparently doesn't cut it. Among other things, I'm not getting the separations of stark whites and blues that IR fans seek and so many of them attain. I'm not a total novice: work in Raw, got it; custom white balance in camera or in post-processing, got it; swap blue and red channels, got it; tinker with contrast and such, got it; what I don't get, seldom even approach, is the classic IR imagery.

Perhaps the lens is a relevant factor. I'm using the Voigtlander 25, which isn't rated tops for IR (I have lately learned), yet I understood that to mainly be a hotspot issue, which I know how to handle, albeit laboriously. That aside, am I beating my head against the wall because of the lens?

Whatever dominant color I begin with, depending on the white balance, when I swap channels I typically just replace that with another dominant color: overall red becomes overall blue, beige turns orange or whatever. I'm definitely missing something when it comes to color separation, but the source of the problem stumps me.

A few on-line sources say that many photo editors can't create the necessary white balance because of their inherent 2000k limit. This dreaded restriction, they claim, severely weakens the desired effect. How important is this? Many sources--most--make no mention of it. In my absolute best shots (very few) I get light pink foliage, with everything else shrouded in a kind of dull pastel blue; interesting to be sure, and in appears on the proper track, but hardly the goal. Have I a WB problem? Obviously lots of photographers sail through this phase of processing without difficulty.

My main software is Zoner Studio Pro. I toyed with Olympus Viewer 3, found it unedifying. I just downloaded Raw Therapee, but I haven't gotten into it yet. Perhaps certain software is mandatory for worthy results? That doesn't seem right, but if it is, so be it.

There I stand at present. While prepared for heavy post-processing, I find myself blocked at every turn. Does something in the foregoing cut through the darkness? It wouldn't surprise me if somebody can pick it out right away. Thus far it isn't me.

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new E-M5ii. Is it IR converted (IR filter removed from the sensor stack) are you trying to achieve the look with a cutoff filter and post-processing?

A few folks here have converted cameras and achieve good results so hopefully they will chime in. I see many posts on the difficulty of infinity focus with certain lenses.

The camera is not converted.  I'm using a Hoya R72 filter.  So far I haven't noticed a focusing problem; the lens is bright enough that, wide open, I can focus through the filter.

Lew wrote:

Still, can you share any examples of what you're talking about?

Good black and white

My very best color

All too typical color

Ditto

That's the kind of stuff I've been getting, with a lot more of the latter two types when I'm trying for color.

Nice one Lew.  That is the frosty white that I like a lot.

I've been using AWB on an IR converted EPL-1 without any issues. I get IR raw files that are fine for conversion to false color images in Photoshop. After tweaking the exposure and contrast and adding a fair measure of sharpening (~60) in Lightroom, I send a copy to Photoshop. In PS I add adjustment layers, via an action, for swapping red and blue channels, color balance, and hue/saturation. Then I go into the color balance adjustment layer and tweak the image to my liking. I flatten the image and send it to Perfect Effects, where I add dynamic contrast.

I'm not really interested in creating the "classic" false color IR look. I'm just looking for something that pleases my aesthetic sensibility.

A couple of examples:

Vorchek wrote:

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new E-M5ii. Is it IR converted (IR filter removed from the sensor stack) are you trying to achieve the look with a cutoff filter and post-processing?

A few folks here have converted cameras and achieve good results so hopefully they will chime in. I see many posts on the difficulty of infinity focus with certain lenses.

The camera is not converted. I'm using a Hoya R72 filter. So far I haven't noticed a focusing problem; the lens is bright enough that, wide open, I can focus through the filter.

While I'm certainly no expert, I did find this website to be particularly useful when I was starting out in IR photography:

https://photographylife.com/introduction-to-infrared-photography

I chose to have a camera IR converted, mainly so that i could experiment with IR photography indoors or in areas where there wasn't a lot of ambient light (most cameras have a pretty severe IR blocking filter in front of the sensor, and I wanted to remove that to "open up" the color spectrum into the IR region.

Here is a useful thread over at mu-43.com that may help you choose lenses for IR photography (some of the best visible light lenses end up being the worst for IR photography, I've found):

https://www.mu-43.com/threads/native-m4-3-lens-infrared-performance-ir-hotspots.32081/

I hope this helps.

Lew wrote:

I suspect you're losing a fair bit of dynamic range going to high ISO, so that may be compressing the curve.

These picture samples happened to have high ISO, but shooting at base ISO made no practical difference.

Lew wrote:

I'd have some time later tonight or tomorrow to have a go with one of your IR images if you want to PM me. It might at least solve the question of whether it's a software matter or camera/filter matter.

I suppose I could e-mail a Raw file, if that is what you had in mind.