infra red on the cheap

After looking at some images over at pentax forums and here. I pulled the trigger on an ir filter 720nm one. I checked the D7100 and it is a good ir camera. The lens to be used will the the kit 18-55mm ver II I think. I did the test with the remote and live view and everything checked out. The thing now is how do you actually take the pics. I know I'll need a tripod. What is the pic supposed to look like? Red? I think they have a calculator to determine exposure. Absolutely new to this. I wanted to give the filter method a try before I do the full convert. And the 7100 still has some regular use left in it, if I convert I can't go back. I found a local place that will do it for $140 cdn which is a deal compared to the US prices I've seen. Plus shipping and tariffs. Exchange rates, It wouldn't be feasible to send it across the border.

Any links/suggestions?

thanks,

I don't know anything about IR filters or photography, so I looked up a couple things just out of curiosity.
I found this was helpful. I learned something new.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/...hotography-using-a-filter-tips-and-techniques

Thanks for the threads. I'm still waiting for the filter from eBay. I will try to post a sample when I go out into the field to play around with ir.

Dawg Pics said:

I don't know anything about IR filters or photography, so I looked up a couple things just out of curiosity.
I found this was helpful. I learned something new.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/...hotography-using-a-filter-tips-and-techniques

Click to expand...

That was interesting! Just the other day I watched a video that took a normal color image and converted it to infrared. It too used channel swapping to achieve its final results - I can't remember who created the video though.

This is the Phlearn video I watched that explains how to convert a color image to infrared in Photoshop.

Lucien, the 720nm filter will allow deep red light in. If you photograph an American flag, it would be faded red and white stripes with a gray star union. And I have done that photo. Red tail lights show perfectly red. Skies have a bit of red mixed in the color and become sort of bronze.

Having a pro do a permanent conversion runs $250 to $275. This removes the visible light pass filter in front of the camera sensor and they install new filter with your specification of cutoff wavelength. I personally like the traditional 720nm. The lower number 850nm will give only infrared and the photos will appear all b/w. The other options are shorter wavelength (more visible color). Not as much of a fan of those, but people do make interesting photos. After I bought a 2nd D80 body years ago, I had my old 2001 vintage Coolpix 995 professionally converted. I still have that camera and it works. But it is just 3.4 megapixel and jpg or tiff only. For 2020 I sent off my remaining D80 body (it was the 3rd DSLR in the house) for a conversion and used it a lot last year. Right until it failed. I have not been able to revive it and I won't spend more money on this 2007 vintage body anymore. I'm shopping around for a used body pre-converted since then. The conversion is really the nice way to go since you can handhold and take photos normally. Autofocus and autoexposure are not an issue this way.

At 720nm many people prefer to use Photoshop to swap the red and blue channels with each other so you get a cool bluish sky. I did that a bit in the beginning but I like to leave the channels alone now. If anything I will fully desaturate to a pure B/W if I see this as the way to go for an image.

Here are 2 examples using that Coolpix 995 at the park in Madisonville, KY where I traveled to for the 2017 solar eclipse. I was too busy to try to get an eclipse shot with it though.





And an extended sampling from my D80 conversion last year. Still hurts a bit that it died.

Fully desaturated to B/W to start.






Color left as is next.








With the D80 I basically left the white balance on auto or measured a custom white balance off of green grass. I tended to shoot in aperture priority mode or in P mode. I mostly kept a very cheap 18-55mm DX (no-VR) lens on it.

very nice samples and thanks for the input. You could find another D80 for even cheaper nowadays. I don't know about preconverted though. The store that I spoke to has a good reputation and they've been the biz for quite a while. I can get my D7100 done for $140 cdn. But the camera is still too young to convert, 5.6K it's almost brand new for an oldie. And why waste all those mp's it's a 24mp man. I'll go the tripod/filter route for now. Plus what if I don't like it, I can't turn the camera back. It's a one way process. I've been playing around with some raw samples and it's not that hard to process. I use Lightroom CC and they have presets for colour and B W then I can tweak them in Silver efex.

Thanks again,

These are some of the said samples. Converted but not finished and they are not my pictures, just some raw samples

Took some ir with the filter today. The exif should show the exposure times. I had a preset white balance. Some green leaves. On average 20 seconds got me good shots with the sun shining. Sun in about 30 seconds. Bypassed the bulb exposure stuff. I found that the lens 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G II bleeds light in the middle of the frame. And it takes a while to set up focus filter on . Take shot disassemble etc. It's not the exposure it the dis assembly that gobbles up the time.

But I'm hooked. Now the fun part. Editing the stuff, or cheat and convert all to monochrome.

Oh, the EV was in the minus because I was shooting clouds as well

Clouds sure do become dramatic in IR!

I have to question since the WB looks like it is still calibrated to visible light. Did you take the WB preset with the IR filter off the lens? If you don't use auto WB then the recommended way is to aim on some green grass and take the sample. In your case with the IR filter installed. In an IR converted camera, it will take out the pink-magenta shade on everything and make it mostly B/W. Some red will show.

I think it might be my filter and it was windy yesterday. I didn't get a lot of colour pics. I mean ir color : )

I like these last two images, lucien!

Do you need to cover the viewfinder to prevent light leak for these images like you do with night exposures?

I'm not sure. I read somewhere that you should shut it out. But I'm getting away with 20-30 seconds on average. I can't be bothered taking that thing off for every pic. I also find that my pics aren't as sharp as the should be. I'm heading out today for round 2. Using 2 primes today and not as windy.