One morning a few weeks ago…..before the “mishap” with my knee, I decided to get up super early and go sit in the woods to get some wildlife shots.  Well I don’t know if it had anything to do with the massive storm that was on the way, but there was absolutely nothing moving.
So after sitting there under a tree in the snow for about two and a half hours, I decided to give up.  I was in the mood to shoot though, and there was literally not a breath of wind, so I figured it was a perfect day to do some more practicing with my IR filter that my super girlfriend got me for Christmas.

Yes that’s snow on the ground, no that isn’t snow on the tree………this is how the world would look to you if you could see the Infrared light spectrum, and not the “visible” light.  All these images were recorded with a Canon Rebel XSi ( I find it’s a little better at IR than my 40D….probably a better IR cut filter on the 40D) and a 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens.  This lens is a little challenging because it doesn’t have the IR focus markings on it like the “L” lenses.  However, I was using a 24-105 for IR for a little bit and I got a feeling for how much focus adjustment was needed……I can get it right most of the time.
For anyone interested in getting into IR photography I’ll give you a list of things you do and do not need, as well as some pointers that took me a while figure out.
What you need:
1. A Camera (obviously)
2. A lens (obviously) Not so obviously is the fact that some lenses can do Ifrared better than others.  There are many lenses that will create “hot spots” at their center.  If you’re just starting out, there’s no need to go buy a lens especially for this, but just do a quick google search to find out if any of your lenses will do the trick.  On a side note, if you are looking at new lenses and are considering getting into IR, some lenses (usually higher-end) have red markings on the focus ring……maybe you’ve seen them before and wondered what they were?  Those are the corresponding IR focus distances .  Very helpful for nailing the focus and using low apertures, which is difficult to do when focusing “blind” as I’ll discuss later.
3. An IR filter, and by IR filter, I mean a filter that blocks out the visible light spectrum and only allows Infrared light to pass through.  Probably the most popular is the Hoya R72, but any IR filter off eBay will do the trick if you’re just getting your feet wet.

4. A sturdy tripod.  You’re looking at exposures anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes depending on how much light there is, your aperture, ISO etc. And unless you’re a robot……..there’s no way you’re handholding that shit.

5. Patience.  There is a bit of guess work involved when you’re starting out, so don’t be suprised if you have to take 3 or 4 five minute exposures to get the shot right.

Alright, the first thing you need to do is take a picture of a plant, close, with the filter on, for purposes of setting a manual white balance. Green grass is best if you have some around, or a tree, etc. will do the job.  It helps to move the camera around so you don’t get any bright or dark spots.

This image should have a strong red tint, that’s fine………use it to set your manual white balance.  This will give you your B&W images straight from the camera, and makes it much easier to do the false color thing later if you want (I’m not going to get into that now, just google it)

Now, take off the filter again, and set up your composition.  Once your satisfied and you’re camera is secured to the tripod, and the tripod is steady, take a focus reading and then reattach the filter, careful not to move the camera.
Here’s the trickiest part, because of the different length of the Infrared wavelengths, the camera will focus on a different plane.  If you have a lens with IR focus markings, you’ve got it easy.  If not……..I usually find I’m pretty safe if I pull the focus back a couple of metres.  Using a higher aperture helps here too, as you’ll get a wider overall depth of field, but increasing your aperture also means increasing your exposure time.

Because you’re going to be doing fairly long exposures, I like to turn my ISO all the way down ( which requires an even LONGER exposure) but you get the best detail.

Now for the trial and error……..the exposure.  If you’re shooting in broad daylight at ISO 100 and f/5.6 I would start with a 1-minute exposure and either go up or down from there.  After your trial exposure, you might have to change your composition because you will realize that there are now hot-spots where there wouldnt’ be under normal conditions.  This has alot to do with the fact that everything reflects Infrared light differently, some things very well (like trees, plants), and some things not at all (like water and the sky, which will almost always come out very dark or black)

So there’s my rant on IR photography, I hope it helps someone……those images in the post were the first IR shots that I was pleased with.  There was a lot of experimentation to get to that point.

I’m going to bed now……..

I know, I know……….every post I promise that I’m going to start updating again……….then I don’t.  Well this time I mean it, mostly because I have recently destroyed my knee and am imprisoned to a splint, not allowed to bend it for three months. (for any of you anatomy folks…..I ruptured my patella tendon…..not good)
So basically, that leaves me with a lot more “spare” time on my hands, so I decided to develop my post skills in Lightroom and Photoshop.  I’ve also been going through my archives and realized that I have taken ALOT of pictures……..I’m never going to print them all, so I may as well put them somewhere for someone else to see.
So…….for the next few months I’ll be going back through the archives and posting fairly frequently, hopefully with new photoshop techniques and tips.
I’ve been sort of obsessed with portraits for a little while now, and how to make my wedding photos not quite so flat and boring.  So…..not having any friends or models close by, I sat on a stool and took my own portrait to mess around with…………here are the results.

I don’t really have time right now to post the full details on the edits, but if there’s any interest, I’ll do a full “how-to” post, or I can e-mail you.

Here is the original, unedited, Lightroom converted jpg that I started with.

First Edit was an attempt to acheive a Dragan-ish image (meaning the style created by Andrzej Dragan…..just google his name and you’ll see what I’m talking about)

There are actually a bunch of different ways to do this…….you can even find some photoshop actions that will attempt to automate the process, but a manual processing gives much better results, as every image needs to be processed a little different.  The core of getting the look seems to lie in a few steps involving duplicating your background and changing the blend mode, adding brightness/contrast adjustment layers (sometimes different layers with masks for specific parts of the image) and some selective, dodging, burning, sharpening and blurring to either bring out or fade details.
For instance, depending on which path you choose in your layers, at some point you will need to use the dodge tool (set to “highlights”) to bring out the highlights of the image.  In the same manner, you will need to burn (set to shadows) lines and wrinkles to accentuate the detail.  Desaturation helps the moody feeling, as does using a dark background.  Finally you will end up sharpening more than usual to bring out some of those details even more.
Here is the end result……..I’m still not 100% happy with this, so I guess I just have to play around some more.

If you do a google search for “Dragan Style” you should find quite a few tutorials, experiment with the steps in each of them, and mix and match what you can until you get the effect you want.

These next two were actually “happy accidents” that occured on the way to the previous image.

In this one, I wasn’t happy with how much detail the “Draganizing” (for lack of a better term) was bringing out in my skin  *cough*pores*cough*.   So I tried adding a masked  Gaussian blur layer………but I inserted the layer in the wrong place and came out with a pretty bizarre effect.  It reminded me of that digital movie with Keanu Reeves….”A Scanner Darkly”, and sort of that new style of  “digitally painting” over portraits……..although not nearly as good as that.
Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool.

Definately something to keep in mind if I do any more work with musicians…..could make some cool promo stuff or album art.

Like I said, this next edit came by accident as well, but I loved it as an end result.  It was actually an adjustment layer meant to enhance black detail in one of my attempts at the first edit.

It reminded me a lot of a pencil sketch……but not like the  penci sketch filter in PS.

This final edit (for now) was completel done in Lightroom…..actually for the sake of time and simplicity (and probably laziness)  I try to get most of my processing done in LR as opposed to photoshop.  At least if I’m working on a whole batch of images, like a wedding shoot.  For single shot edits, PS still has way more power, but Lightroom has a much easier/quicker flow.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent….back to the edit.  It’s a simple high contrast black and white, but I’ve started to do them differently and I really like the result.
Basically, I turn up the exposure and fill light (and sometimes brightness if I need to ), then compensate by turning up the blacks.  That gives you nice bright highlights and slightly crushed shadows.   To increase the contrast, I set the point curve to “high contrast” then adjust the contrast slider to taste.  I find setting a high Clarity level helps bring out some of the detail as well, mine is usually up in the 60’s for this type of edit.  Depending on your colors, you might want to mess around with the color channels in grayscale mode to lighten or darken selective areas.

So that’s it…….that last one is probably my favorite edit to do right now, and for the most part its how I process all my wedding B&W’s.

I’m off to find something else to try.