Infrared Gear Starting to crack the infrared code?

[bilzmale]

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.

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[Brian]

I converted a Nikon Coolpix 950 to full-spectrum years ago, since gave it away to a student. As it was full-spectrum, I tended to use various filters to Block one visible band, leaving that channel sensitive to IR only. These are taken using a Magenta Filter to block green. Blue channel is not swapped. Infrared Ektachrome tended to show Chlorophyll as Red. I remember using "auto-levels" in Photoshop 7 for these.

 

[bilzmale]

Yes Brian, I discovered the Auto Levels tweak in ACR and used it on these shots. All were further tweaked in On1 as I still prefer it to PS.

 

[Petrochemist]

I generally shoot JPEG for my IR & find the ideal WB varies with the filter type. With my 590nm a low kelvin setting tends to work pretty well & a simple Hue adjustment gives results I like without the need of a colour swap.
About 180° adjustment gives 'Goldie' like results:

P1160563c by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr
But very different options are also available (the same river, day, direction, lens, camera, WB...)

P1160561d by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr
Some of my blue filters seem to be better with higher kelvin white balance, but my blue & green filters vary considerably!

 

[Petrochemist]

With a full spectrum convertion there are also more unusual filters that can be employed such as the U330 (transmitting UV & NIR):

Dovercourt park IR by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

or BG3 which gives some visual blue as well:

aP1040285 by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

Both of these showing colours straight out of the camera (I don't know what WB was used, it was probably the custom WB set by the previous owner).