I took a set of 7 sequential images using 5 different cards.
A break of 30+ seconds between each card allowed the sensor to cool down.
All shots taken at ISO160 and pushed in post.
The first scene was pushed +2.62 on exposure and +79 on fill light.
The second scene was pushed +0.69 on exposure and +100 on fill light.
You can draw your own conclusion but I’m going out to buy more 2GB cards.
This lens is from the 70′s. I scored a great deal on one in Leica Thread Mount which is easily adapted to Leica M.
I’ll take some real shots with it over the weekend. These six are wide open.
I read an article on setting white balance in infrared photography today.
I was linked to the article by one of the handful of photography publications I respect and enjoy. This is the first point (and carried throughout the article): “1. Shoot in Monochrome mode. It’s that simple. No white balance needed, everything needed is right there on your LCD screen and you image file in glorious black & white.”
*facepalm*
Ok, so instead of taking the cowards way out and cutting out half of the entertaining and wonderful options available to you in infrared photography I have written this article to show you how to actually shoot IR, have all the options under the sun (pun intended) available and still be able to shoot like Scott Bourne of Photofocus and just click “grayscale” if that is what appeals to you.
Firstly, filters. If you have a dslr with some kind of IR filtration built into it, I wouldn’t go for a filter with a longer wavelength cutoff than 720nm, that means Hoya R72 and comparable.
Secondly, custom white balance, my camera lets me shoot a target from which it can define the white balance, green grass is the best as under IR this should come up white. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter too much as we’re shooting IR but a colour temperature around 850K-1200K if you can set it, would be ideal.
Most of us use photoshop or lightroom to edit RAW files. There are others out there, Capture One for example which doesn’t need any extra faffing about for this step. For those of us who like Photoshop and Lightroom, here is an essential step. Both programs are limited (by default) to white balance of 2000K and cooler. Because your white point is a lot warmer than possible at default we need to create a dng profile.
Download the Adobe DNG (not camera) Profile editor from this page (it’s free).
Install it.
Convert an Infrared file you have shot to DNG using Lightroom.
Open the DNG Profile Editor and click file-open and navigate to your recently created IR DNG.
Click on the “Colour Matrices” tab on the top right.
The second from the bottom slider titled “Temperature” should be slid to somewhere between -80 and -100 depending on your camera’s personal sensitivity to IR.
Click File->Export **** Profile (the **** part will vary from camera to camera)
Save the .dcp (digital camera profile) file in the corresponding location for your particular operating system:
| Mac OS X | /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles or <home>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles |
| Windows 2000 / XP | C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles |
| Windows Vista | C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles |
| Windows 7 | C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles – obviously, replace YOURUSERNAME with your user name |
Now open Lightroom (if it is already open, close and reopen it) and import (or find in “library”) your IR DNG.
It should look like this:
Even with the temperature at 2000.
But now we go to “Develop” and scroll to the bottom. Under the “Camera Calibration” section there is an option labelled “Profile” Click on whatever is currently next to it, and you should see what you called your .dcp file earlier. Select that option and this is what you should see:
You might be saying “yeah but that looks just as plain as setting it to monochrome a la Scott Bourne” And you’d be right. What we now need to do is our usual editing with a nice lumping of contrast and saturation. You should be able to get something like this with little effort:
Now we’re getting somewhere! If it works for you, you can stop here and maybe even make a preset that applies the profile etc.
For me and many others, the brown skies aren’t that desirable so there is one more step, which requires photoshop. So right click the image in Lightroom and click “Edit in” and “Photoshop CS5″ or “Photoshop Elements” or which ever flavour you own.
In Photoshop click Image->Adjustments->Channel Mixer
What you want to do is change red and blue around. So we select Red from the drop down menu, slide the red slider to 0 and the blue slider to 100. Then select Blue from the drop down menu, slide the blue slider to 0 and the red slider to 100.
there is a little icon next to “Ok” to save the result to a preset, I call mine RB Swap:
From there you can do minor tweaks to colour, if you find it a little cool, go back to Lightroom and cool it down a bit there, that way when you get to photoshop and do the RB Swap it’ll be warmer.
I hope that is more helpful than simply “use monochrome”.
Firstly, these guys do great prints, if they’re for yourself and you don’t mind delays and lack of customer service then knock yourself out.
I’ve gotten over a thousand dollars in prints done by these guys in the past. I’ve always been very happy, until a recent pair of orders and now I am looking elsewhere.
I get them to print the canvas and stretch and mount it myself as it is MUCH cheaper to do it that way. I have access to high quality frames and good equipment for doing so.
Two customers who also happened to be friends of mine ordered some prints, in total 4 prints and a value of $600 AUD – BIG canvas prints.
I placed two orders because my friends ordered at different times during the day and I try to be very prompt. In the notes for the second order I asked them to please combine the orders and sort out the shipping charges then send me an invoice.
When the invoice arrived it was just for the second order (I had already paid for the first order) and still had a full shipping charge.
Not wanting to delay things for a few dollars in shipping cost, I approved the order and gave payment details.
11 days passed (26 Nov-07 Dec).
I was a little concerned because I got their automated “you should have received your order by now, please leave us feedback” e-mail.
After sending them an e-mail asking if everything was ok (still very mild mannered and polite at this stage), I let them know I had clients waiting on these prints and would appreciate a quick resolution.
The next day I received a reply stating that they had sent me an e-mail on the 29th (I ordered on the 26th) giving instructions on how to combine the order. I hadn’t received the e-mail, I don’t have a spam filter and my mail host is local and very reliable. I asked them to forward me the e-mail. They responded by sending a NEW e-mail with the instructions, which involved me re-uploading all of the files for the second order into the first order and they then re-processed it. When I pressed them to forward the original e-mail from the 29th so that I could ask my mail host what the hell had gone wrong, they said it was impossible because they use a “filmaker” program which doesn’t store sent e-mails. 
I should add that all the e-mails I received from them are signed “customer service” no name, I also received no phone calls. In the past I used to get e-mails from a very polite lady named Melissa, and prompt and polite phone calls if anything was even slightly amiss.
I let the issue drop, even though I expect they’re full of shit. I worked for the dodgiest bunch of losers in the world once, and even their mail-processing system would allow me to retrieve a sent e-mail and header if really required.
Fast forward another 7 days to yesterday, and I stayed home all day because their e-mail said the order would arrive between 9 and 5 that day. Nothing arrived. I sent them a more sternly worded e-mail letting them know my disappointment.
One of my clients has quite a long drive to my place and was going to come up today, after already having his order delayed 7 days more than it needed to be, but I had to give him the bad news on the phone today that his order still hadn’t arrived and I told him it should be here today.
Well, it still didn’t arrive today.
I looked at the tracking details for the con-number they gave me, it doesn’t give any tracking details and says “not scanned” but it gives a shipped date of the 10th and an ETA of the 16th, so another day at home (most likely I’ll leave a ‘leave-authority’ note on the door) tomorrow.
They never replied to my sternly worded e-mail (I still don’t cuss in business e-mails mind you).
Overall, leaves me feeling rather displeased, and makes me look like an ass to my mates. I’m just very lucky this wasn’t an order for a client I’m not buddies with, otherwise they would have been less accommodating and much more likely to tell others that I cannot provide orders in a timely manner.
I will hopefully be exhibiting next year, and printing somewhere in the order of 40-50 images costing thousands of dollars, and I certainly won’t be having ‘Genius’ print them.
Sorry about the rant.
If possible, could anyone recommend a good alternative? I’ve been chatting to Brilliant Prints via e-mail and they seem very professional and friendly. They are sending me a canvas proof, and if it looks good, I think I’ll switch to them as my primary printer.
ADDENDUM: After receiving a couple of rather lengthy and apologetic e-mails, signed by actual people I have decided to give them another shot.
I ordered a single, rather smallish print for a friend. I chose the ‘professional’ service that is 15% extra, and also paid for 2 day shipping. We’ll see how quick they get it to me and if there are any issues :p
So that I don’t accidentally shoot at ISO800 when shooting landscapes *facepalm*
Especially if (as Leica have done) you want to maintain style/functionality of your film cameras, all of which have ISO dials.
Anyway, it still came out okay, but I would never print/sell this shot as under close scrutiny the file is not good enough.
New lens day 
Some rubbish shots walking around with my dog in the bland park near my house… low contrast which is excellent for a fast lens, good colour, sharp enough, smooth out of focus areas.
A wedding photographer named Ryan Brenizer came up with a method for emulating large format film, where a 150mm lens is considered ‘normal’ (the equivalent of 50mm on full 35mm frame film/digital) and produces a very unique look. Here are a few seaside shots taken today (a couple more to come when I get some new stitching software) using this method.
The old version of the site has been pushed back up. A shame because I know a few people wanted to buy prints through the store.
Please contact me via the contact button on the right of the top banner, or by commenting on this post if you would like to order anything and I will make sure you are looked after.
Apology below kept for future reference, but not relevant right at the moment.
Hi All, big apology for:
Please let me know if you notice any other problems, I am working with the web developer to get this fixed ASAP! Sorry again 
Daniel
I had nightmares when I first got my printer, it took me a long time to get prints that matched what I saw on my calibrated screen. I did printer profiling and calibrating and all sorts of nonsense until I discovered I wasn’t doing it right on the computer. Here is a step-by-step using my Canon Pixma Pro9000 as an example.
I use Ilford paper because the profiles are readily available, if you’re using Canon paper you should have less issues, but still follow these steps.
Once the profile is downloaded (a .icc file) simply double click it and windows will add it, you may need to reboot I don’t know.
Go into photoshop and open the image you want to print.
I usually sharpen with an unsharp mask, 150% 1.0px Threshold of 4.
First things first, click print settings.
Daniel Kennedy
Landscape Photographer
Perth, Western Australia
(View Biography)
