I shot my first IR yesterday using Lee color gels as the IR filter. It worked surprisingly well, although I can't find any cheap way to buy R, G, and B color gels now. My swatchbook samples are getting a bit tattered. I used Efke IR820 and developed in Xtol 1+2 at 20C for 15 min with agitation every other minute.
It's not LF, but it will be. I was just shooting 35mm to test if the color gels actually worked.
chazmiller.com/projects/leeir.html
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
--A=B by Petkovšek et. al.
The Harrison tent is IR proof.Originally Posted by 612tom
Don Bryant
Here's a synopsis of a recent shoot involving several hundred frames of Efke IR 820 and Efke IR 820 Aura in 4x5 and 120 roll film formats.
The "Aura" feature does not do much on big film as the image "halation" or "flare" is quite small. I imagine in the 35mm format where the enlargement ratios are greater the "Aura" would be more prominent. Bunches of green leaves which "glow" in the infrared tend to merge into fuzzy blobs with significant over exposure. This effect is worse with the Aura version of Efke IR 820.
There is a loose correlation between conventional meter readings and infrared exposures. My Pentax spot meter was set at EI=1.5 for sunlit scenes, EI=0.75 for sunny day subjects where shadow detail was important, EI=0.3 for cloudy overcast days. Exposures were through IR680 and IR720 filters. Surprisingly it did not matter which filter was used. The results looked much the same!
The IR680 and IR720 filters, 77mm diameter, came from China via Ebay. They cost about $20 each. It is possible, for me at least, to see through these filters and preview the infrared effect. The filter has to be held close to the eye, extraneous light carefully excluded, and the eye "dark-adapted" for about 30 seconds. I suspect that with the iris of the eye wide open looking at the sun through an IR transmitting filter would be a very bad thing indeed.
Efke IR 820 film shows significant reciprocity failure but the following corrections worked well:
1 second metered, give1.5 seconds
2 seconds metered, give 3.5 seconds
4 seconds metered, give 8 seconds
8 seconds metered, give 24 seconds
15 seconds metered, give 1 minute
30 seconds metered, give 3 minutes
more then 30 secs, give up.
Infrared focus shift is real and horrible. Everything I shot with the 360mm lens on my Mamiya RB 67 is out of focus. I suspect I have to rack this lens out about 5mm to compensate the difference between the visible and IR focii. More exact measurements are planned. Wide angle lenses well stopped down yielded sharp images but only because increased depth of focus forgives imprecision.
Some development variations were tried including hot paper strength Dektol! This was supposed to cure the reputation IR negatives have for low contrast. Cure indeed! The resulting super-contrasty negatives still made acceptable (sort of) pictures on grade#0 and grade#1 paper. Optimum development for my film turned out to be 7 minutes at 20 Celcius in straight Xtol. YMMV, naturally.
In practice Efke IR 820 like other IR films I have tried both disappoints and exhilarates. A lot of subject matter I had high hopes for yielded unremarkable schmutz but some plain things turned to visual magic. That's the deal.
Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".
For focusing using non-bellows cameras, look at your lens for a red dot or line, and this signifies the IR focus point. The focus point shifts "forward" depending on your lens length. On a 135 it is just a smidgen forward (3mm?) and is covered by f16, and more for longer lenses. (I just looked at a small picture of a Mamiya lens, and I didn't notice a red dot or line to the left of your normal focus point. Pentax has it, but maybe Mamiya doesn't.)
Metering for IR is a real guessing game. Usually the light I use is pretty bright, but one time I was under a tree canopy in deep shade. I guessed that the light was very dim in the IR spectrum, and boy was I ever wrong! All the shots were overexposed, and it was just a question of overexposed by how much. Good test for Farmer's Reducer.
In the HIE datasheet, Kodak recommends moving the front standard forward by .25%, which is about .4mm for 135.On a 135 it is just a smidgen forward (3mm?)
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
--A=B by Petkovšek et. al.
Yes, BetterSense, you're right, I measured it with a ruler after I posted. Usually I don't bother with moving the lens when shooting LF, I just stop down.
Probably one of the best comments I've ever seen about IR photography in my opinion.
When shooting a roll of 120 IR film (or an equivalent number of 4x5 sheets) I tend to get the extremes... absolute magic or absolute trash. Seems to be little in between.
But with experience I am getting better about prediciting what subject matter will work the best.
Bob G.
All natural images are analog. But the retina converts them to digital on their way to the brain.
It seems that there so much inconsistency using IR films, they're probably much less forgiving than regular films and some days (too cloudy or rainy) are not meant to be for IR photography.
Well, the problem is measuring IR light. I suppose you'd have to have a meter devoted to it. A few photographers on this forum have modified their meters for that purpose. Usually my problem has been overexposure.
My guess is the inconsistency is in our eyes and not in the film. Or perhaps I should say "in our minds" since we don't see the IR and only extrapolate toward what we "think" we will see when the film is developed.
These taken on one of the hottest most miserable days of our unforgiving summer out here in the East. I was crazy to even be out.
I shot the Efke Aura (first one) in the shade but the sun was so intense I can see from the photo that the IR was literally everywhere. Bob G.
All natural images are analog. But the retina converts them to digital on their way to the brain.
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