I have visited IR photography many times over the years and have previously owned two converted cameras (Oly E500 and Canon G9) prior to picking up a Pana GF1 this month with a broad spectrum conversion ( sees UV + Visible + IR). The advantage of this is by changing the external filters you can take a range of photo types.
I've never been really happy with my results until this weekend. None of the RAW converters I tried managed the white balance correctly with a lower limit of 2000K which is still very blue. The standard red/blue channel swap did not give me what I saw others achieving and I noticed all the tutorials I pored over, used Photoshop. I actually went as far as downloading the latest CC but even that didn't give me what I was after. While logged in to Adobe I noticed there was my old version of CS6 waiting to be downloaded with the serial number so I installed that. I hadn't spent any money but it still wasn't 'working' for me.
Then I hit google pay-dirt. The Kelvin temp of IR light is closer to zero and the only way to get the white balance this low is to convert a RAW unprocessed file to DNG and create a custom profile in the free DNG Profile Editor. With this installed in ACR I was getting the red/blue channel swaps I was seeking. I also created a profile for broad-spectrum photos.
Yes, this is getting long-winded so I'll share some photos. The first 5 are taken with an IR filter and the last with no filter.
I've never been really happy with my results until this weekend. None of the RAW converters I tried managed the white balance correctly with a lower limit of 2000K which is still very blue. The standard red/blue channel swap did not give me what I saw others achieving and I noticed all the tutorials I pored over, used Photoshop. I actually went as far as downloading the latest CC but even that didn't give me what I was after. While logged in to Adobe I noticed there was my old version of CS6 waiting to be downloaded with the serial number so I installed that. I hadn't spent any money but it still wasn't 'working' for me.
Then I hit google pay-dirt. The Kelvin temp of IR light is closer to zero and the only way to get the white balance this low is to convert a RAW unprocessed file to DNG and create a custom profile in the free DNG Profile Editor. With this installed in ACR I was getting the red/blue channel swaps I was seeking. I also created a profile for broad-spectrum photos.
Yes, this is getting long-winded so I'll share some photos. The first 5 are taken with an IR filter and the last with no filter.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
