This is a full feature article on how to shoot digital colour infrared photography.

The time has come to dust off that old DSLR and rekindle the experimenter in you. Colour infrared photography is here, it’s affordable and it’s easy to do well.

These guys were setting up a beach wedding ceremony venue while a tropical storm rolled in. After much rain and strong winds for an hour or so the wedding ceremony finally got under way.

When I bought my first digital camera, the Fujifilm S1, I was already aware that all CCDs are sensitive to near infrared light. I used a Hoya R72 visible light blocking filter to take pictures. The only trouble was Fujifilm had rightly so installed an infrared blocking filter in front of the CCD to ensure an accurate natural colour rendition. The combination of the two filters meant that only a small amount of light was let through. This in turn made the camera only useable with a tripod. A typical exposure with my Fujifilm S1’s and S2’s was 4 seconds at ISO 100 using f/8. It was fine for landscape and architecture, but not great for portraits. With the red filter on the lens, composition was by guesswork using a test and measure procedure with the screen on the camera back providing the feedback.

Detail pictures like this drift wood on the beach make great subjects for colour infrared photographs.

A few years ago I read an online feature that showed how to replace the filter in front of the CCD. It was intended as a DIY guide and kits were available for purchase to enable the reader to have a go. It was at a time when some photographers were paranoid about the CCD even to the extent of not ever changing lenses. The thought of stripping down the camera and doing heart surgery on the sensor was completely out of the question. A while later a remote service became available in the US and all you had to do was post your camera overseas and hope it came back in one piece having had a successful operation. In the operation the IR block filter is replaced with a visible light block filter that is the equivalent to the Hoya R72.

In December 2007 A good friend of mine, Martin Plant informed me that this service has progressed somewhat and was now available in the UK by mail order from Advanced Camera Services. We both decided the Canon 10d would be a suitable candidate and took the plunge.

Yet another storm rolling in to Tioman island in Malaysia made a dramatic backdrop for this infrared picture.

First findings with the converted DSLR

Advanced Camera Services replaced the infrared blocking filter with a visable light blocking one, and a true digital infrared camera was made. Better still, the focus tracking wasreset with a firmware tweak and now there is no need to compensate whatsoever for the fact that infra red light focuses at a different distance to normal light. There is one other advantage and it is a really big one; Because the R72 filter is behind the lens and not in front of it you can use the viewfinder as normal and the sensitivity is no different from a standard camera either.

Focus accuracy

I was initially concerned that the focus might not be spot on but those fears were unfounded. I can use lenses wide open with confidence. Shooting infrared pictures hand held, using the camera as normal and seeing the results instantly is such a revelation.

Wonderful rock formations on a beach in paradise. This picture, like the other colour images in this post were taken on a Canon 10D converted for infrared use.

Exposure issues

Even though there is usually plenty of latitude with infrared images getting the exposure right is important. I often use as much as + or – 2 stops of compensation to get the exposure in the top of the register without clipping. The light metering is still full spectrum so a few surprises spring up from time to time. Water and blue skies tend to be rendered darker, while foliage is typically rendered a lot lighter

Pseudo colour or mono

I have really explored the characteristics of my 10D ir and having pushed the files through all sorts of post-production systems I have settled on a combination and look that I can call my own. I love the opportunities that shooting colour makes and although the colour is false I find it beautiful. I am very used to experimentation to get a ‘look’ and it has taken me six months to perfect the recipe for this one.

These coral waters were rendered far darker in infrared than they were to the eye.

Recipe for creating colour infrared pictures

• Get yourself a camera for conversion. Martin and I decided the Canon 10d was ideal as ultimate resolution was not our goal and we wanted to be able to use our existing lenses. Discuss your intentions with the guys at ACS for the latest options and availability.
• Shoot in jpeg. Once you have your camera shoot in jpeg. I have not yet found it possible to shoot my colour infrared system with RAW capture, as neither Photoshop or Lightroom have the adjustment range within their colour balance sliders to pull the colours in to an acceptable starting point. Capture One or Raw Developer may be well be different.
• Create a custom white balance in camera. The Canon 10D achieves this easily even though the unadjusted file is bright red.
• Get the exposure right using a test and measure system. With a custom white balance set up you can easily assess exposure using the screen on the back of the camera.
• Use Lightroom to import, manage, backup, rename and sort your files.
• Batch the folder of selected files with an action that leaves you with adjustment and effects layers in Photoshop. My action uses auto levels, swaps the red and blue channels, creates a blurred layer and blends it with soft light having de-saturated it first, it then creates a grain layer blended with overlay and finally saves the file as a layered tiff in a new location.
• Make fine adjustments to the files as required. The pictures in this article are literally straight camera files, that have gone through my action.

Digital infrared photography creates a striking representation of the world that we see.

Here are a few of my infrared pictures taken ten years ago on Konica 720 roll film. I used a Hasselblad SWCM equiped with a Hoya R72 filter. This style and quality of work is easily reproduced with a 12 mega pixel DSLR that has been converted for infrared use. Prime wide angle lenses might be the best optics to use for image quality.

Konica 720 film was a favourite of mine in the 1990s

The Hasselblad SWCM came with a seperate slide on optical viewfinder for ease of use.

These three pictures were taken in northern France in Brittany

If you found this helpful, you may also like Infrared wedding pictures in colour – first findings and Infrared portrait ~ Picture and Technique