Infrared with the M system

[Larry Rexley]

I've gotten a few more relatively inexpensive infrared filters in the past few weeks. I found a 950 nm filter on eBay in 67mm size for $6, an 850 nm filter in 77mm size for $15, and a Tiffen Blue #47 filter in series 7 drop-in style for $15 (all prices include shipping.)

The Tiffen Blue #47 filter as far as I can tell is very similar to the LifePixel 'Super Blue' or the Kolari 'IR Chrome' filters which are much more expensive. It's a cobalt-blue filter by appearance and passes only blue light in the visible spectrum, but its sensitivity rises again in the infrared starting around 700 nm or so, so it is a dual-bandpass blue + IR filter.

The Tiffen #47 gives you beautiful royal blue skies but with plants and foliage appearing a lovely golden yellowish color (or reddish depending on how you choose to white balance). It only does this if you have a full-spectrum camera which is still sensitive to visible blue light.... any IR conversion will block the blue light and you'd get only the IR.

The cool thing about the super blue filters is that you don't need to color swap red and blue channels in post. The images appear in lovely IR false color right in the finder or on the rear screen, so it is easy to compose and see the final effect of the filter. It would be easy to shoot in JPG with this filter whereas with the other IR color filters like a 590 nm super color iR filter you need to shoot in RAW and do a lot of post-processing to get a decent false color result.

Here are some sample images I shot last week at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor complex 'Rocket Garden'. They are not shot as 'great' photos compositionally, my purpose was to experiment with the various IR filters. All shot with full-spectrum-converted Canon M200. All processing done in DxO Photolab 5.


FS Canon M200, EF-M 11-22mm, 12mm, f4, 1/1000s, ISO 100, Tiffen Hotmirror filter (viisble light image only)


FS Canon M200, EF-M 15-45, 15mm, f9, 1/200s, ISO 200, Tiffen #47 blue filter (visible blue only + IR)


FS Canon M200, EF-M 15-45, 15mm, f8, 1/640s, ISO 500, Tiffen #47 blue filter (viisble blue only + IR)


FS Canon M200, EF-M 11-22mm, 11mm, f7.1, 1/640s, ISO 200, Spencer Camera 590 nm 'extreme color' ftiler, red/blue channels color swapped in post


FS Canon M200, EF-M 11-22mm, 13mm, f5.6, 1/200s, ISO 160, Generic Chinese IR 850 X-ray/IR filter off ebay


FS Canon M200, EF-M 22mm f2, f3.5, 1/50s, ISO 1000, Neewer 950 nm filter


FS Canon M200, EF-M 15-45, 15mm, f9, 1/200s, ISO 200, Tiffen #47 blue filter (visible blue only + IR)


FS Canon M200, EF-M 11-22, 11mm, f7.1, 1/500s, ISO 160, Spencer Camera 590nm Extreme Color ftiler, red/blue channels color swapped in post


FS Canon M200 , EF-M 11-22, 13mm, f9, 1/125s, ISO 400, Generic Chinese IR 850 nm X-ray/IR filter off ebay

After only a few weeks of use, already the Tiffen #47 'super blue' filter has become my favorite 'infrared' filter to shoot with. The results are lovely out of camera - I prefer them to the color-swapped 'super color' style filters like the 590nm and Hoya 25A red filter both of which have a similar bandpass and need similar post-processing.

With the color-swapped results it's really tricky to get the final color balance right... usually the sky ends up purple or the foliage too 'red' for my personal taste. And usually you have to do several custom hue shifts --- one global to channel swap red and blue, but then I find you have to fiddle with the yellow and blue hues again separately, and this is quite time consuming.

The Tiffen 47's colors are beautiful straight away out of the camera which just a single white balance needed on something 'green' --- then you get bright royal blue skies and yellow or golden foliage, which is a look I really like.

I also liked the 850 nm filter's results for black-and-white high contrast IR images. Snow-white foliage and really nice contrast with sharp images. The Neewer 950 nm filter I bought needs so much more exposure that it forced me to high ISO and larger apertures than I wanted, which deteriorate the IQ. Also I found the 950 results to be less contrasty and more muted-looking than the 850 nm filter's images.

A few more results with the Tiffen #47 from other shoots:


FS Canon M200, vintage Star-D 28mm f2.8 lens, f8, 1/640s, ISO 400, Tiffen #47 blue filter + Hoya Skylight filter


FS Canon M200, EF-M 15-45, 15mm, f10, 1/80s, ISO 100, Tiffen #47 blue filter


FS Canon M200, EF-M 15-45, 30mm, f5, 1/80s, ISO 640, Tiffen #47 blue filter

 

[TimCastleman]

Nevermind, got the answer by reading previous posts.

 

[R2D2]

Thanks for the great lesson Larry. I'll have to bookmark this thread!

R2

 

[Larry Rexley]

Thanks for the great lesson Larry. I'll have to bookmark this thread!

R2

My pleasure. I've really been enjoying IR photography, and use the IR-converted M200 body much more than I thought i would. I always wanted to try IR, since I was in high school, especially for astrophotography.

Like another person in the camera club I belong to, I've found that shooting IR fundamentally has altered how I think of light and look at scenes... the full-spectrum m200 and a few IR filters come with me most of the time. There are particular scenes and types of lighting where the 'best' shot is often some kind of IR shot.

Have you ever tried IR photography? If not, the M200 is a great choice for a conversion, being small and relatively inexpensive, but still having a lot of contemporary functionalty with great IQ, and working with all native EF-M lenses which we already own.

Due to IR light focusing at different distance than visible light, often smaller apertures are desirable and even then images are a little softer in the corners with wide-angle lenses than straight visible light images. Interestingly, I've found that some cheap $20 vintage lenses are as good or better in IR than expensive contemporary lenses. Because of the challenges IR poses for lenses, the M6ii's high 32.5 MP resolution is too much, the extra resolution isn't useful.

 

[barbara j]

Thank you, what filter did you go with? I'm thinking the 590.

With a full spectrum conversion you have your choice of the entire range by adding an external filter to the lens. Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to convert a camera to a single bandwidth. My camera is a full spectrum conversion, and I shop bandwidth filters on ebay. My first filter was a "new, old stock" kolari duplicating the filter that had been removed from the sensor. I have also seen some really nice images shot with the cheap Chinese filters that were flooding ebay but haven't tried any yet.

This is an older thread, but glad I revisited

 

[Larry Rexley]

Thank you, what filter did you go with? I'm thinking the 590.

With a full spectrum conversion you have your choice of the entire range by adding an external filter to the lens. Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to convert a camera to a single bandwidth. My camera is a full spectrum conversion, and I shop bandwidth filters on ebay. My first filter was a "new, old stock" kolari duplicating the filter that had been removed from the sensor. I have also seen some really nice images shot with the cheap Chinese filters that were flooding ebay but haven't tried any yet.

This is an older thread, but glad I revisited

That's true enough, and was also my reasoning in going full spectrum. I wanted the ability to do astrophotography (IR cut filter which allows visible and IR up to about 700 nm) and 'Super Blue' (visible blue + IR) as well as experiment with different IR ranges. Some day I might try UV photography, although UV-pass filters are quite expensive ($150 - $200) and a lot of lenses don't play well with UV.

However, it does almost always mean I put some sort of filter on the lens to use the full spectrum camera. I can't just swap lenses with a non-converted camera I shoot with at the same time, and every time I put a different lens on the converted camera I have to mount a filter on it.

Some people don't want that hassle and prefer to have a dedicated IR conversion with their choice of filter mounted directly on the sensor, replacing the factory sensor hot mirror filter(s). A good 'middle' choice for a conversion in my opinion would be a 590 nm conversion, so that any lens you put on the camera would already be ready for 'super-color' IR which is a great choice, and can also be readily converted to B&W for higher-contrast IR (although it may not be as high contrast as a 720 nm or 850 nm filter).

With a permanent 590 filter, you'd also have the option of using a deeper IR filter, such as a 720 nm, 850 nm, or 950 nm filter, so you still have quite a bit of choice.

A 590 nm conversion would not allow you to do 'Super Blue' (visible blue + IR such as a Tiffen #47 filter or Kolari Super Blue), or visible (Kolari hot mirror filter), or visible + hydrogen-alpha (Tiffen hot mirror filter), or Yellow + IR (Tiffen Yellow #8, #12, or #15 filter), or Green + some IR (Hoya Green X1 filter), but many folks don't care about those options.

 

[Larry Rexley]

Thank you, what filter did you go with? I'm thinking the 590.

With a full spectrum conversion you have your choice of the entire range by adding an external filter to the lens. Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to convert a camera to a single bandwidth. My camera is a full spectrum conversion, and I shop bandwidth filters on ebay. My first filter was a "new, old stock" kolari duplicating the filter that had been removed from the sensor. I have also seen some really nice images shot with the cheap Chinese filters that were flooding ebay but haven't tried any yet.

IR filters, and even standard filters suitable for IR use, aren't cheap and if you try a lot of them, the cost can really add up!

I'm a super-discount shopper and love finding great deals! Like you I shop ebay, and also regularly check Amazon.com. Another trick is I search google using catch phrases like the filter type and size I want, then click the 'Shopping' tab - sometimes great deals pop up there. I've had good luck buying from mercari.com (I took a chance on a 'dusty' Sigma 16mm f1.4 lens for $200 from someone who had it sitting on a shelf for a couple year - it turned out to be in mint condition after cleaning off the dust!).

Searching google you have to be careful though --- I see quite a few suspicious sites and stay away from ones I don't know...

Here's a list of 'discounted' filters I've gotten, with commentary and current deals for filters that are still available at the time of writing this post:

- Hoya R72 67mm filter from B&H photo used but in new condition, $40 ($66 new at amazon.com). I see a 'Hoya R72 55mm' (search phrase) on ebay right now for $30 which includes shipping. This is a standard 720 nm IR cutoff filter which gives you a slight amount of color, but is perhaps best suited for B&W IR photography. It doesn't require much exposure adjustment on a full-spectrum camera, and can even be used on a non-converted visible light camera with about a 12-f-stop penalty, meaning 5-30 second exposures in full sunlight.

- Hoya Red 25A filter off ebay in both 55mm and 77mm sizes for $15 each, including shipping. Currently I see Hoya Red 25A in 58mm size (search phrase 'hoya 58mm red 25a') for $10 including shipping. The Hoya Red 25A filter is essentially the same thing as a 590 nm filter from Kolari Vision or LifePixel at a more attractive price. The 25A filter cutoff is at a slightly longer wavelength so it appears more red that orange-red, but the images it gives are very similar to the 590 nm filters. I prefer the 25A's more golden foliage colors over a 590 nm filter's reddish foliage. Isaac Dzabo tipped me off to that filter for IR, he's the guy who converted my M200 to full-spectrum.

- Tiffen #47 in Series 7 size for $15 including shipping off ebay. This filter is nearly identical to Kolari vision's super blue filter which passes visible blue + infrared longer than about 700 nm. This has become my absolute favorite IR filter and stays on my M200 by default. if there is blue sky plus colorful clouds at sunset, this filter also creates spectacular sunset photos with colors from blue to red after custom white-balancing. Usually you white balance on something green like grass or tree leaves for royal blue skies and lovely golden yellow autumn-like foliage colors.

The Tiffen #47 gives images like the 590 nm 'super color filter' plus red/blue channel swap - but you get the Tiffen 47's false color results straight out of the camera without the need to do channel swapping or almost any post processing. You can also see the false color with blue skies and yellow foliage in the EVF and on the rear screen, very helpful in getting a nice final result.

I took the glass out of a vintage 55mm polarizer filter and mounted the glass from the Tiffen 47 series 7 filter into it, and it works great. There is one left on eBay (search phrase 'tiffen 47 series 7') which is $20 - however I 'Made an Offer' of $15 which the seller accepted, so I got $5 off. The Tiffen 47 filter is available on amazon.com in standard 55mm size for $30 - $35 including shipping, by several sellers. Even at the 'new' price, it's a great filter for full-spectrum cameras --- if I could only have one filter for my full-spectrum camera, I would probably choose the TIffen #47.

- (no brand) 850 nm IR/X-ray filter 77mm from eBay for $14.29 including shipping. Still available, search phrase 'IR 850 nm 77mm filter'. This is a great high-contrast IR filter which is deeper than the Hoya R72 (720 nm cutoff) filter

- Neewer 950 nm 67mm filter for $6 from eBay! Still available (search phrase 'neewer 950 nm 67mm'). This is a very deep IR, surprisingly good quality IR filter for the price. It is so deep in the IR spectrum that it requires 3-5 stops more exposure than the R72 filter. It can still be used in bright daylight without a tripod, but it's challenging and in lower light you need a tripod.

- Tiffen Yellow #15 55mm filter for $6 at amazon.com (open box warehouse deal). The new price is only $19 but $6 is a steal for almost any filter. Tiffen Yellow #15 is an ultra-color filter which passes more orange and yellow light than the 590 nm super-color filters, it's like a 550 nm filter from Kolari vision with a cutoff a little more into the yellow (perhaps around 530 nm). It will render foliage bright pink like the old Kodak Aerochrome IR color slide film did.

- Tiffen Hot Mirror filter in various sizes from amazon.com. Currently these filters are expensive, but for some odd reason, from time to time some sizes of the filters had deep discounts this summer! You might check amazon from time to time, perhaps over a few weeks at different times of day, to see if any deep discounts appear, and if they do, nab them!

I got the Tiffen Hot mirror filter in 49mm size for $10 (currently $62), in 55mm size for $26 (currently $74) and in 77mm size for $47 (currently $141). This filter is supposed to be a visible bandpass filter that replaces your original factory hot mirror filter, however its bandpass extends to about 680 nm allowing more IR light that your factory filter does, so you need to custom white balance photos to use it with a full spectrum camera. It is a great filter for astrophotography - very similar to the Spencer camera or Baader visible + h-alpha filter. I removed the glass from the Tiffen 49mm filter, and just the glass fits nicely into a Canon EF T-ring when mounted onto the Canon EF - EOS M adapter or the Viltrox EOS - M2 speed booster. I use this combo on my telescope for astrophotography.

I post all the above info in the hopes it will save someone some money! it's almost as much fun treasure-hunting discounted IR filters as it is using them!

******

If I can, I like to buy filters in 67mm size, which fits the Sigma 16mm f1.4, Rokinon 12mm f2, and Rokinon 135mm f2 lens (with a step-down ring from 77->67mm). A few times I've found 77mm filters cheap and use a step-up ring with those on the 67mm lenses. I have a couple 55mm to 67mm step-up rings, and a couple 67mm - 77m step up rings, so I can use 67 and 77mm filters on any of my smaller lenses as well.

Sometimes I've found great deals on 55mm filters, which fit on the EF-M 18-150 and Sigma 56mm f1.4 lenses. I have 'permanent' step-up rings on the EF-M 22mm f2(43->55mm), EF-M 32mm f1.4 (43->55mm), EF-M 15-45 (49->55mm), and EF-M 55-200 (52->55mm). I also have a few vintage lenses in 49 through 55mm filter sizes which work well with IR, so 55mm is a good 'standard' size for me which work on most of my lenses.

Filter step-up and step-down rings are generally $5 - $8 on amazon.com, and allow you to buy all your filters in a couple 'standard' sizes, and adapt them to various lenses you might own that may have different filter sizes. This is much cheaper than buying filters in every size, and also useful if you find a super-discounted filter in a size slightly different than your preferred size. You can leave the stepping rings on your lens all the time... good lens caps are usually also about $5 on amazon.com and can be sometimes bought in packs of 4 even cheaper.

This is an older thread, but glad I revisited

 

[NormSchultze]

How does that work with the yellow of CSX trains and TECO Trolleys?

 

[Larry Rexley]

How does that work with the yellow of CSX trains and TECO Trolleys?

Someone's been paying attention!

You read my mind I do plan to try IR on the trains and trolleys. I did a little bit but only video with the R72 filter, perhaps that is what you are referring to:

I plan to shoot trains with other filters to see what the effects are. The Tiffen Yellow #15 filter from amazon is arriving today, I am hoping Amtrak Special engine 203 (Operation Lifesaver) which is yellow comes back through Tampa today, it is known to be in Miami and that it isn't raining...

 

[NormSchultze]

Yes, I've shot AMT 203 on the e/b Sunset Limited. The Yellow/Black livery should be interesting.

And I remember when TECO was yellow without the wraps....I'm really old !

 

[petrochemist]

With my full spectrum cameras I've found a fair number of old photographic filters can work well. Practically any of the red/orange yellow filters for black & white film will be long pass filters equivalent to high color/super color etc.

Blue & green filters are much more variable not all pass IR & this can vary between filters supposedly of the same type. Some that have worked well on one occasion have been quite useless a few months later (possibly from varying IR in the sunlight)

A variable ND can be very good allowing the visible portion to be adjusted while constantly seeing ~800nm plus (stacked with appropriate coloured filters the affect is the same as the variable wavelength filters on e-bay)

I'll try any strongly coloured filter I come across (colour correction & warming/cooling types tend to be too weak)

A few types of 'technical glass' can be effective too, but many of these are hard to get in sizes above 50mm, tend to come without any mounts & don't have guaranteed optical flatness. Still my 25mm Schott BG3 & U330 filters have worked well on lenses small enough for them to cover. They were among a set from work that were no longer used

 

[petrochemist]

I recently had an M200 converted to full-spectrum infrared (IR), and have been experimenting with it.

All images were shot RAW, white balance was set in post using the gray part of the cloud on the horizon.

I'd love to hear other folks' experiences with IR on M!

I'm shooting IR on a different camera but on your M, try setting the white balance on location, using green instead of a cloud. Anything green works, I have a green plastic card, an old library card, that works well when there isn't any grass. This gives a much cleaner look to your image.

The back of your hand, plain paper & concrete can work quite well too. They do give slightly different effects to foliage, which is just something else to play with.

FWIW I've shot some green painted metal that had practically zero IR reflected so probably wouldn't have worked at all for WB.

 

[Larry Rexley]

This is a comparison of 13 filters on a converted full-spectrum Canon M200 camera, and on an unconverted Canon M200 camera, using a Canon EF-M 22mm f2 lens, on a tripod. Nearly all images were shot at f8 at ISO 100 and the shutter speed was set by the cameras in Av mode.

Warning: this is a very long post with 45 images! If you don't want to look at all the images, the last image is perhaps the most interesting, explained in the comments below all the images.

The comparison was done with the following filters, listed here with current pricing in 67mm size (except for the IR 850 which is 77mm size):

- Spencer Camera Visible + H-alpha - cuts UV and near IR ($110 Spencer Camera)

- Tiffen Hot Mirror - cuts UV and mid to deep IR ($130 B&H)

- K&F Concept Clear-Natural light pollution reduction for astro ($55 Amazon)

- Hoya FL-D - fluorescent to daylight conversion ($36 Adorama)

- Hoya Green X1 - passes green & a little IR ($28 Adorama)

- Tiffen Blue #47 - passes visible blue + IR ($50 B&H)

- ZB2/BG3 Violet Blue UV IR Dual-band Pass - ships from China ($16 eBay)

- Tiffen Yellow #15 - ~550 nm longpass ($25 B&H)

- Spencer Camera 590 nm longpass orange ($100 Spencer Camera)

- Hoya Red #25A - ~620 nm longpass ($37 Adorama)

- Hoya R72 - 720 nm longpass ($54 Amazon)

- IR 850 IR Xray - 850 nm longpass in 77mm filter size ($15 eBay)

- Neewer 950 nm IR X-ray longpass ($6 eBay)

All images were shot in a 45 minute period on a sunny afternoon with clouds in the sky. Most are in full Sun but there were a few times the Sun ducked behind a cloud. Images processed in DxO Photolab 5, uncropped but downsampled to 2160 pixels high.

Infrared post-processing is usually done to personal taste. I prefer false-color IR to have yellow-golden foliage with skies as close to blue as possible, so I processed the images in this post towards that end.

Many of the color IR images were processed with a global hue shift of varying amounts to do the standard IR red-blue channel color swap. This is done in DxO PL5 on the color tab by rotating the outer ring of the HSL control when the ‘white’ color is chosen for editing. The starting position is the outer ring point on the right side of the ring (the 3 o’clock position) — in the image captions, I indicate how much of a hue shift was done in a counter-clockwise direction. A 180 degree hue shift swaps red and blue channels (to the 9 o’clock position). A 165-degree shift is to about the 9:30 o’clock position.

Most of the images below were white balanced on the concrete in the driveway, in post-processing the RAW files. A few used other points in the image as indicated, and in some cases where the colors were so monochromatic that the balance went off the scale, a custom color balance was used where I indicate the temperature in Kelvin (the range is 2000 K to 50,000 K in DxO PL5) and the Tint value (the range is -200 to +200 of the DxO PL5 tint slider).

Reference image from stock (unconverted) M200


1. Stock M200: No filter, daylight WB (reference image)

Images with full-spectrum M200


2. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer Visible+H-alpha, concrete WB


3. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Hot Mirror, concrete WB


4. Full-spectrum M200: No filter (full spectrum), concrete WB


5. Full-spectrum M200: K&F Concept Light Pollution, concrete WB


6. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya FL-D, concrete WB


7. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Green X1, concrete WB


8. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Green X1 & Hoya FL-D, concrete WB


9. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Blue #47, concrete WB


10. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, concrete WB


11. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, concrete WB, 15 degree hue shift


12. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB


13. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift


14. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB, 195 degree hue shift


15. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer 590 nm, concrete WB


16. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer 590 nm, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift


17. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB


18. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift


19. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB, 165 degree hue shift


20. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB


21. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB, 180 degree hue shift, saturation increased


22. Full-spectrum M200: IR 850 nm, concrete WB


23. Full-spectrum M200: IR 950 nm, concrete WB

Full spectrum M200 with multiple stacked filter combinations


24. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR & Tiffen Hot Mirror, house column WB


25. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR & Tiffen Hot Mirror, house column WB, in B&W


26. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Spencer Visible+Ha, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200


27. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Spencer Visible+Ha, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200, in B&W


28. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Tiffen Hot Mirror, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200


29. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Tiffen Hot Mirror, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200, in B&W

Stock (unconverted) M200 images with filters


30. Stock M200: Hoya FL-D, concrete WB


31. Stock M200: Hoya Green X1, concrete WB


32. Stock M200: Hoya Green X1 & Hoya FL-D, concrete WB


33. Stock M200: Tiffen Blue #47, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100


34. Stock M200: Tiffen Blue #47, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100, in B&W


35. Stock M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100


36. Stock M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100, in B&W


37. Stock M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB


38. Stock M200: Spencer 590 nm, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100


39. Stock M200: Spencer 590 nm, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100, in B&W


40. Stock M200: Vivitar Red #25A, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100


41. Stock M200: Vivitar Red #25A, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100, in B&W

'Real' IR images with a stock (unconverted) M200!


42. Stock M200: Hoya R72, concrete WB


43. Stock M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB, 180 degree hue shift


44. Stock M200: IR 850 nm, Custom WB 4000k Tint -200


45. Stock M200: IR 850 nm, Custom WB 4000k Tint -200, 165 degree hue shift, reduce magenta saturation

My personal takeaways:

- All filters were of very good quality. I did not see degradation of the images from the filters, even the ‘cheap’ Chinese filters

- The Canon EF-M 22mm f2 lens is almost free of a hot spot at f8, however one can be seen in image #23 in the deepest 950 nm IR filter on the full-spectrum M200 image

- The ‘cheap’ Chinese ZB2/BG3 filter for $16 off eBay was very similar to the more expensive Tiffen #47 filter. Both are dual-band filters similar to the Kolari Vision ‘IR Chrome’, passing visible blue light plus infrared longer than about 700 nm. These filters are becoming my favorites as they give lovely false-color images straight out of camera with little to no post-processing, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts. It took less than 3 weeks for me to receive the ZB2 filter from China.

- The Tiffen Yellow #15, Spencer 590 nm (orange), and Hoya Red #25A filters all gave very similar images, they could be substituted for one another with just a slight global hue shift needed to make their images similar.

- The Hoya Green X1 filter passes a little IR, changing the foliage to be slightly reddish on the full-spectrum M200

- The Spencer Camera Visible + H-alpha filter is a close approximation for the camera’s original ‘hot mirror’ filter that was removed in the full-spectrum conversion. With a custom white balance, its images look very much like the unconverted camera’s images, with slightly richer looking foliage

- The Tiffen Hot Mirror filter does not cut near-IR nearly as well as the Spencer camera Visible + H-alpha filter, and is not a close approximation for the camera’s factory hot mirror filter. I was unable to White balance images using this filter to look like normal images from the unconverted camera — foliage always has an odd reddish appearance. This filter may be useful for astrophotography, however

The BIG surprise, and discovery, for me was the last image #45: unconverted (stock) M200 camera when used with the eBay 850 nm deep IR longpass filter — this combination unexpectedly gave beautiful false-color infrared images!! I have not read of anyone getting false-color infrared images from an unconverted camera, or trying an 850 nm filter with an unconverted camera.

The images coming out of that combo were very similar to images from the full spectrum camera with the Hoya Red #25A filter - both requiring almost identical processing with a 165 degree hue shift to give images with golden foliage and blue skies.

What is going on there? An 850 nm filter is universally known for being a deep infrared filter that gives only monochomatic or B&W results!

What must be happening is that the combination of that 850 nm filter with the unconverted camera’s factory IR cut filters is creating a result that is very much like the Hoya R25A filter, passing IR fairly evenly from about 620 nm to ~1000 nm. I don’t know if it’s that particular 850 nm filter that gives this result, or if other brands of 850 nm filters would behave similarly.

I also tested an unconverted Canon M6ii with the 850 nm filter, and got nearly identical false-color IR images. I will post more about this in a later post.

So Canon ‘M’ owners can buy that $15 850 nm IR filter off eBay, and take false-color infrared images with long time exposures without converting their camera to infrared! Long exposures of 2 to 30 seconds are required, similar to shooting R72 IR filter images with an unconverted camera, so the image quality is not going to be as good as IR images from an IR-converted camera.

This discovery allows Canon M owners to experiment with false-color IR without spending $275 for an IR conversion, with the risk of converting the camera and not being able to easily use it for standard photography.

 

[petrochemist]

Very useful!

I see I'm not the only one who uses the Hue slider aggressively I find it much easier than a channel swap, as well as allowing a wide variety of results without any effort.

Having the photos in series makes it very difficult to compare results. Having them presented as low resolution 4x4 composites would make that much easier to look at the most relevant shots - but might involve quite a bit more work...

 

[Larry Rexley]

Very useful!

I see I'm not the only one who uses the Hue slider aggressively I find it much easier than a channel swap, as well as allowing a wide variety of results without any effort.

Agree. I spent hours processing files in DxO PL5 and then loading results in Adobe Lightroom to do the somewhat complicated red/blue channel swap, then bringing them back into PL5 for final processing, before learning you could do it in seconds with the HSL hue wheel directly in PL5!

Having the photos in series makes it very difficult to compare results. Having them presented as low resolution 4x4 composites would make that much easier to look at the most relevant shots - but might involve quite a bit more work...

Agree, there's no easy way to present a lot of images for comparison in a chat format. I placed the images in order sequenced by the similarity of the filter and roughly from short wavelength to long wavelength, to try to make some sort of comparison possible.

If you're using a desktop (not mobile) browser, you can click an image to view it full-screen, then use the arrow keys to quickly toggle through the images.

Here's a 9 x 5 image of thumbnails you can view magnified, or download, with all the images in order. For reference, the image info is below. Good cases for comparison are bolded.

If you want to compare particular images, I suggest downloading them from the magnified view and then you can view them side by side on your machine.



1. Stock M200: No filter, daylight WB (reference image)

2. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer Visible+H-alpha, concrete WB

3. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Hot Mirror, concrete WB

4. Full-spectrum M200: No filter (full spectrum), concrete WB

5. Full-spectrum M200: K&F Concept Light Pollution, concrete WB

6. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya FL-D, concrete WB

7. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Green X1, concrete WB

8. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Green X1 & Hoya FL-D, concrete WB

9. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Blue #47, concrete WB

10. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, concrete WB

11. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, concrete WB, 15 degree hue shift

12. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB

13. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift

14. Full-spectrum M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB, 195 degree hue shift

15. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer 590 nm, concrete WB

16. Full-spectrum M200: Spencer 590 nm, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift

17. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB

18. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB, 180 degree hue shift

19. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A, concrete WB, 165 degree hue shift

20. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB

21. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB, 180 degree hue shift, saturation increased

22. Full-spectrum M200: IR 850 nm, concrete WB

23. Full-spectrum M200: IR 950 nm, concrete WB

24. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR & Tiffen Hot Mirror, house column WB

25. Full-spectrum M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR & Tiffen Hot Mirror, house column WB, in B&W

26. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Spencer Visible+Ha, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200

27. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Spencer Visible+Ha, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200, in B&W

28. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Tiffen Hot Mirror, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200

29. Full-spectrum M200: Hoya Red #25A & Tiffen Hot Mirror, Custom WB 2000K, Tint -200, in B&W

30. Stock M200: Hoya FL-D, concrete WB

31. Stock M200: Hoya Green X1, concrete WB

32. Stock M200: Hoya Green X1 & Hoya FL-D, concrete WB

33. Stock M200: Tiffen Blue #47, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100

34. Stock M200: Tiffen Blue #47, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100, in B&W

35. Stock M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100

36. Stock M200: BG3 Violet/Blue/IR, Custom WB 50,000K Tint -100, in B&W

37. Stock M200: Tiffen Yellow #15, concrete WB

38. Stock M200: Spencer 590 nm, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100

39. Stock M200: Spencer 590 nm, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100, in B&W

40. Stock M200: Vivitar Red #25A, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100

41. Stock M200: Vivitar Red #25A, Custom WB 2000K Tint -100, in B&W

42. Stock M200: Hoya R72, concrete WB

43. Stock M200: Hoya R72, foliage WB, 180 degree hue shift

44. Stock M200: IR 850 nm, Custom WB 4000k Tint -200

45. Stock M200: IR 850 nm, Custom WB 4000k Tint -200, 165 degree hue shift, reduce magenta saturation

 

[barbara j]

Very useful!

I see I'm not the only one who uses the Hue slider aggressively I find it much easier than a channel swap, as well as allowing a wide variety of results without any effort.

Agree. I spent hours processing files in DxO PL5 and then loading results in Adobe Lightroom to do the somewhat complicated red/blue channel swap, then bringing them back into PL5 for final processing, before learning you could do it in seconds with the HSL hue wheel directly in PL5!

Having the photos in series makes it very difficult to compare results. Having them presented as low resolution 4x4 composites would make that much easier to look at the most relevant shots - but might involve quite a bit more work...

Agree, there's no easy way to present a lot of images for comparison in a chat format. I placed the images in order sequenced by the similarity of the filter and roughly from short wavelength to long wavelength, to try to make some sort of comparison possible.

If you're using a desktop (not mobile) browser, you can click an image to view it full-screen, then use the arrow keys to quickly toggle through the images.

Here's a 9 x 5 image of thumbnails you can view magnified, or download, with all the images in order. For reference, the image info is below. Good cases for comparison are bolded.

If you want to compare particular images, I suggest downloading them from the magnified view and then you can view them side by side on your machine.

This is completely amazing and wonderful. I was shocked when I first realized how many filters are out there. Some very old. I will use this to decide which filters to explore.

I am working on something like this with my GX9. The internal digital filters have some pretty interesting effects. I will use your method to create a guide so when I want a hot pink and screaming yellow zonkers style video, I can find the settings

--
@luredbylight

 

[petrochemist]

Thanks Larry a great reference and now much easier to view than my own efforts at test shots.

 

[Larry Rexley]

Thanks 'barbara j' and 'petrochemist' for appreciating the amount of effort involved in putting together those filter comparison posts. Most folks in the M forum don't shoot IR so this thread is probably of little interest to them.

I did it because I wanted a comparison to see what filters get what kinds of results with various types of processing, especially fine-tuning hues to see if similar results can be gotten with various filters. They can --- the yellow/orange/red filters behave similarily, and the Hoya R72, 850 nm , and 950 nm also to a degree for B&W IR.

I also did it because I could find no other reference that's as complete. Both Kolari Vision and LifePixel have matrices of results but they don't go into this much depth, and they are targeted towards selling you their very good but somewhat expensive filters. Such a comprehensive comparison is kind of a 'holy grail' if you're trying to decide what type of conversion to get, or to understand what kind of budget filter options are available.

After doing all this work, I think I need to bring only three filters in my camera bag to cover most types of infrared shooting I'd do with my full-spectrum camera:

1. Tiffen Blue #47 - I like the results of this filter the most and it requires little to no post processing (but only works with a full-spectrum conversion)

2. 590 nm - Similar results in some ways to the Tiffen Blue #47, but it requires post-processing. Results have less chromatic aberration than the #47, and only requires a straight red/blue channel swap or 180 degree hue shift for nice golden foliage. I can see why this conversion is so popular as it also allows you to shoot the deeper IR filters like 720, 850, etc.

3. 850 nm - Seems like this has the most contrast and greatest effect for B&W IR style photos. 720 is nice but lets in some visible red light, and 950 has less contrast and needs exposures that are much longer.

On a very tight budget you could do a similar set with a BG3 Blue/IR filter from China, a used Hoya 25A for Super IR Color, and an 850 nm filter for B&W IR all from eBay for $60 - $70, which is about the cost of a single filter from one of the conversion companies.

 

[barbara j]

Thanks 'barbara j' and 'petrochemist' for appreciating the amount of effort involved in putting together those filter comparison posts. Most folks in the M forum don't shoot IR so this thread is probably of little interest to them.

I did it because I wanted a comparison to see what filters get what kinds of results with various types of processing, especially fine-tuning hues to see if similar results can be gotten with various filters. They can --- the yellow/orange/red filters behave similarily, and the Hoya R72, 850 nm , and 950 nm also to a degree for B&W IR.

I also did it because I could find no other reference that's as complete. Both Kolari Vision and LifePixel have matrices of results but they don't go into this much depth, and they are targeted towards selling you their very good but somewhat expensive filters. Such a comprehensive comparison is kind of a 'holy grail' if you're trying to decide what type of conversion to get, or to understand what kind of budget filter options are available.

After doing all this work, I think I need to bring only three filters in my camera bag to cover most types of infrared shooting I'd do with my full-spectrum camera:

1. Tiffen Blue #47 - I like the results of this filter the most and it requires little to no post processing (but only works with a full-spectrum conversion)

2. 590 nm - Similar results in some ways to the Tiffen Blue #47, but it requires post-processing. Results have less chromatic aberration than the #47, and only requires a straight red/blue channel swap or 180 degree hue shift for nice golden foliage. I can see why this conversion is so popular as it also allows you to shoot the deeper IR filters like 720, 850, etc.

3. 850 nm - Seems like this has the most contrast and greatest effect for B&W IR style photos. 720 is nice but lets in some visible red light, and 950 has less contrast and needs exposures that are much longer.

On a very tight budget you could do a similar set with a BG3 Blue/IR filter from China, a used Hoya 25A for Super IR Color, and an 850 nm filter for B&W IR all from eBay for $60 - $70, which is about the cost of a single filter from one of the conversion companies.

I am partial to the 590 look. All of the images on my instagram, luredbylight, that are not standard color have been shot with my converted GX9, unfiltered. Each color set was obtained via a different camera mode. Plus sometimes using the "artistic" digital filters. A few were raw images imported into Photos and the color flips that occurred when that program pulled the jpeg. But I didn't keep track. So I am going to try your format to try to map it out so I can repeat on demand.

 

[Larry Rexley]

Thanks 'barbara j' and 'petrochemist' for appreciating the amount of effort involved in putting together those filter comparison posts. Most folks in the M forum don't shoot IR so this thread is probably of little interest to them.

I did it because I wanted a comparison to see what filters get what kinds of results with various types of processing, especially fine-tuning hues to see if similar results can be gotten with various filters. They can --- the yellow/orange/red filters behave similarily, and the Hoya R72, 850 nm , and 950 nm also to a degree for B&W IR.

I also did it because I could find no other reference that's as complete. Both Kolari Vision and LifePixel have matrices of results but they don't go into this much depth, and they are targeted towards selling you their very good but somewhat expensive filters. Such a comprehensive comparison is kind of a 'holy grail' if you're trying to decide what type of conversion to get, or to understand what kind of budget filter options are available.

After doing all this work, I think I need to bring only three filters in my camera bag to cover most types of infrared shooting I'd do with my full-spectrum camera:

1. Tiffen Blue #47 - I like the results of this filter the most and it requires little to no post processing (but only works with a full-spectrum conversion)

2. 590 nm - Similar results in some ways to the Tiffen Blue #47, but it requires post-processing. Results have less chromatic aberration than the #47, and only requires a straight red/blue channel swap or 180 degree hue shift for nice golden foliage. I can see why this conversion is so popular as it also allows you to shoot the deeper IR filters like 720, 850, etc.

3. 850 nm - Seems like this has the most contrast and greatest effect for B&W IR style photos. 720 is nice but lets in some visible red light, and 950 has less contrast and needs exposures that are much longer.

On a very tight budget you could do a similar set with a BG3 Blue/IR filter from China, a used Hoya 25A for Super IR Color, and an 850 nm filter for B&W IR all from eBay for $60 - $70, which is about the cost of a single filter from one of the conversion companies.

I am partial to the 590 look. All of the images on my instagram, luredbylight, that are not standard color have been shot with my converted GX9, unfiltered. Each color set was obtained via a different camera mode. Plus sometimes using the "artistic" digital filters. A few were raw images imported into Photos and the color flips that occurred when that program pulled the jpeg. But I didn't keep track. So I am going to try your format to try to map it out so I can repeat on demand.

Very interesting. Your images are lovely, quite creative!