Successful D90 IR WB finally

I know this may be an old subject, but I have a good way of fooling the D90 into an IR whitebalance. Since the traditional method never gained a GOOD preset, I took a photo that was taken with my D70 and put it on the D90's memory card. Since the D70 takes excellent IR WB presets, it worked for the D90 as well. A little longer shutter is required, but there is potential. Below is a sample image with the D90. I used an 18-55 lens ( set at 18mm) f/3.5 @ ISO 100 for 10 seconds on a tripod. All I did in PS was the simple Channel Mixer and adjusted the Levels just a little bit. Nothing major and no extensive time involved. No other Editing was done. There is hope.

Interesting. More details, please.

WM

I do a LOT of IR so I've got some Q's.
1. Are you using a converted camera or external filter? assuming a filter by the "long shutter speed" comment
2. What wavelength filter? appears to be 590nm - maybe 665nm
3. Are you shooting RAW or JPEG?

In-camera WB is nice, but not critical if you're shooting RAW and processing with Photoshop. I shoot with a converted D7000 and D800 (both at 720nm) and while I can achieve an in-camera WB for a JPEG, but I shoot RAW and couldn't get PS to replicate it until I created a customer camera profile for each...


I can assure you that shooting RAW is the way to go with IR, regardless if you're using a filter or conversion. If you've avoided it because of the WB issue then try creating the custom profile - it's a piece of cake.

Actually, I used an unconverted D90 and a Hoya R72 (720nm) filter. All I did was this. First, composed the picture as normal while the camera and lens was in AF. Second, I screwed on the filter and THEN I switched the camera and lens from AF to Manual so the camera wouldnt try to focus with the filter on. Then it was a series of tests. I started off at 30 seconds, then 20, then 10. all at the same ISO as to see which was better. No other camera functions were used like +EV. The preset pic I got from the D70 actually does the trick. Or you can possibly get an image from somewhere else that has been done with a D70. I used RAW only. I just transferred the image to the D90's memory card and for WB, I chose a preset picture ( the one from the D70) that was in the D-1 slot.

BackdoorHippie said:

In-camera WB is nice, but not critical if you're shooting RAW and processing with Photoshop. I shoot with a converted D7000 and D800 (both at 720nm) and while I can achieve an in-camera WB for a JPEG, but I shoot RAW and couldn't get PS to replicate it until I created a customer camera profile for each...

I can assure you that shooting RAW is the way to go with IR, regardless if you're using a filter or conversion. If you've avoided it because of the WB issue then try creating the custom profile - it's a piece of cake.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this info. Although I'm not at a point to try it myself, now that I know a little about how to alter the WB, getting an IR filter might be something I get down the road.

When the weather clears up, I can take a piece of white paper outside and take a picture of it and then upload it. I can use the D70 to take the picture. One at f/3.5 and one at f/22 and at 200 or 400 ISO. It can be downloaded and then put onto your particular camera's memory card and then try it

Do these filters actually do real IR processing or do they just give an IR-like result? It seems like most of the "IR" photos I see just mess with the visible spectrum colors that the camera captured but don't really show any IR heat signatures.

For instance, if I took a picture of my house's chimney in the winter would this process really reveal a heat plume?

This just has to do with the color spectrum. I believe what you are referring to are thermal signatures. That's an entirely different subject altogether

excaliburken said:

This just has to do with the color spectrum. I believe what you are referring to are thermal signatures. That's an entirely different subject altogether

Click to expand...

Well, infrared is part of the color spectrum we just can't see it; we generally perceive it as heat. But if I understand you correctly, what's being discussed here is "IR-like" results that mimic the results you'd get if you shot old color IR-film back in the day. It doesn't actually show IR.