And speaking of IR film . . .

[lulalake]

Hi all.
And speaking of Infrared film . . . . I got to thinking, how many of us have shot Kodak IR HIE or HIR color film? With HIR (color IR slide film) now over 30 bucks a roll, not many I bet. In the 60’s and 70’s when it was still 8 bucks a roll I shot a bunch of it and here are a few examples I shot in 1970 and ran across this weekend:

Sculpture at Hoover Dan




Some Old pals of mine:




When scanned in they make great B&W conversions:

Fast Plane:




Inside that plane:



BTW, the young newlywed couple were in loooooove. Their daughter is now 34 years old and they still look like Peter Fonda and Faye Dunaway.

Cheers

Jules

[Randy]

Very Cool Jules! A couple of Jet Setters! My only regret is that I didn't take enough pictures long ago when I should have.

[lulalake]

admin said:

Very Cool Jules! A couple of Jet Setters! My only regret is that I didn't take enough pictures long ago when I should have.

Thanks Randy,
Yeah, I always had, and still do have, some kind of camera around. Sometimes it's a $1 thrift store camera but . . . .

Cheers

Jules

[John Parry]

Hi Jules,

No I never used IR film. Wasn't an option with the type of camera I had around the time you're talking about. I've seen those stunning cloud photographs, and these are beautiful.

But I'm not familiar with the concept behind it. Was the idea to just get a different slant on things?? When people talk about IR photography, I tend to connect that with looking at things like body heat, and animal photography with pictures taken at night. I know that with a normal camera, if you tried to get too far into the infra-red you would pull the focus out enormously - so presumably with these daytime shots there is some sort of compromise going on?

Regards - John

[lulalake]

johnrparry said:

Hi Jules,

No I never used IR film. Wasn't an option with the type of camera I had around the time you're talking about. I've seen those stunning cloud photographs, and these are beautiful.

But I'm not familiar with the concept behind it. Was the idea to just get a different slant on things?? When people talk about IR photography, I tend to connect that with looking at things like body heat, and animal photography with pictures taken at night. I know that with a normal camera, if you tried to get too far into the infra-red you would pull the focus out enormously - so presumably with these daytime shots there is some sort of compromise going on?

Regards - John

Hello John,

Yes IR does incredible things with clouds, one of the aspects is that is cuts through haze so some of the wispiness of a given set of clouds disappears so the "edge" definition of a cloudbank becomes obvious along with a deeper contrast, which is prevalent with IR, makes for some added drama to the photographs.

The concept of IR shooting is roughly this. There is a fairly wide spectrum of infrared energy from just past visible light in the red spectrum to infrared heat. There are films that are sensitive to what's termed "near-infrared". That's the energy that exists just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, around 720nm to 2500nm. These are the films that are available commercially. Of course there are far infrared cameras out there that are sensitive in the 2.5um 25um range, heat. Beyond that are micro waves and radio waves etc.

So what we are shooting in actually termed near infrared, but being somewhat lazy we call it simply infrared photography. (Astronomers are a bit more picky and term it "near infrared "when shooting stellar events)

Many materials reflect IR quite differently than visible light. Certain black pigments are good IR reflectors so that black sweaters or pants may come out somewhere between a tan and a refrigerator white.
Vegetation also acts differently; live vegetation is a high IR reflector, while dead vegetation is a poor IR reflector, water can look inky black.

Water and vegetation example:



Human skin is interesting. The first layer of skin is a somewhat poor IR reflector but the second layer reflects highly therefore skin blemishes tend to disappear with IR pictures, also people seem to take on an inner glow because that’s what's actually happening. Also Kodak B&W IR has no anti-halation layer so the glow becomes even stronger due to light being reflected back through the film from the pressure plate.

Skin glow example:



Color IR film mixes visible light with IR which accounts for the somewhat unpredictable color shifts.

Example:



So as you can see, it's fun stuff. Yes there is a focus with IR film. If you look at most SLR lenses there is a red dot near over to the right of center on the focus mark cowling. That's the IT focus so one focuses visually then turns the focus ring to that point. (stopping down helps too). Color IR however needs no focusing compensation as it's mostly visible + IR

By the way, the older cameras tend to be far better with IR than newer ones, as the newer ones use an internal IR diode to count the frames for auto advance and the IR fogs the IR film where the good older ones (1990 or so and older) uses the mechanical frame counting method..

All one needs is, for B&W, a deep red filter and the film, for color, just the film.

Cheers

Jules

[John Parry]

Whoa,

A whole new world out there, and I've only got film in two cameras! Do you know if Ilford do an IR film?

These shots remind me of computer enhanced space shots (the rings of Saturn spring to mind). Are you still taking them? If so please keep posting them !!

Regards - John

[lulalake]

johnrparry said:

Whoa,

A whole new world out there, and I've only got film in two cameras! Do you know if Ilford do an IR film?

These shots remind me of computer enhanced space shots (the rings of Saturn spring to mind). Are you still taking them? If so please keep posting them !!

Regards - John

Hi John,

Yes, it's rather amazing, this IR photography and yes Ilford makes an IR film.

It's the SFX 200 film. The film is a standard B&W film that is chemically sensitized to IR wavelengths. It's almost a double purpose film.

Here is a site where a fellow has made some tests of the film with various filters.

www.efikim.co.uk/macoir.shtml

Ilford makes a special filter for IR use however it's just a deep red filter, Kodak #29 I think and Colin has a similar deep red filter.

Maco/Rollei also makes a new film the IR400 film, more available in your part of the world than mine, it's a true ASA400 IR film, very fast.

Let me know how you progress but a word of warning, IR shooting is addictive!

Cheers

Jules.

[kamera]

I, also, never played with IR film. But have seen some really neat and different examples of what it will produce.

Nowadays a lot of what you could get from IR, you can do in Photoshop and completely change hues, colors, etc.

I know, not the same as doing it in-camera, but still a lot of fun.

Ron Head
Kalamazoo, MI

[lulalake]

kamera said:

I, also, never played with IR film. But have seen some really neat and different examples of what it will produce.

Nowadays a lot of what you could get from IR, you can do in Photoshop and completely change hues, colors, etc.

I know, not the same as doing it in-camera, but still a lot of fun.



Ron Head
Kalamazoo, MI

Hey Ron,
Yes it is a ball, and there are some excellent .atns that come pretty close to digital IR.

Jules

[Randy]

So is it safe to say that this type of IR film won't take pictures in the dark? Is that just an old tale?

[PeterW]

Hi Randy,

Infra red film, true infra red not half and half, will give an image of something in the dark provided that something is emitting fairly strong 'light rays' below the normal visible spectrum (infra red = below the red end of the spectrum). Somewhere in a 1930s part work I've got a picture of an electric iron taken in a dark room on infra red film with no other lighting.

Body heat also includes infra red emission, but not very strong, so to take a picture of people in the dark you need an infra red light source, an infra red lamp as it's popularly known. The 'light rays' it sends out are not normally visible to the ordinary eye.

This was the principle behind the 'see in the dark' gunsight first developed by the Germans in world war 2. An infra red lamp was used by 'Weegee' in the 1960s I think it was to get some pictures of the audience and their reactions to a horror movie without their knowing they were being photographed.

Peter

[vintageslrs]

Randy, I like it.....kinda Mid-Evil.



Bob

[lulalake]

admin said:

So is it safe to say that this type of IR film won't take pictures in the dark? Is that just an old tale?

Hi Randy,
Yeah. The sensors in digitals and IR film that we can get are sensitive to "near IR" whereas heat is in the far IR range.

Here's an example; a shot of fire from a highly sensitive digital IR modified camera I took last summer.




Fire doesn't put out much Near IR at all. (It was a good BBQ though).

Jules