We are indebted to Paul Williamson for giving us this interesting experiment into the world of Infra-Red Photography.
Last Christmas I had an old Nikon D70 converted to take Infra Red pictures.
The company involved was Protech Photography of Uckfield, East Sussex.
www.protechrepairs.co.uk/infrared_conversion
The cost was £220 which included the return postage to Chorley.
If you look at their web site you will see a vast collection of IR pictures taken with different IR filters. You can opt for 100% IR capture or partial by choosing one of four available filters. I chose the 720NM filter because I liked the look of the examples that contained red, amber and blue tones rather than 100% mono.
Some of you will have seen my work in Monthly Competitions and at Appraisal Nights. The results are always interesting and often quite strikingly different. The colours remaining in the photos taken can be enhanced or altered, in RAW and later in Photoshop by playing with White Balance, Intensity, Hue & Saturation, Remove Colour Tomes and Alter Skin Tones. My partial IR images can also be converted to full IR by using Convert to Black & White/ IR.
I have included some examples for you to see the effects.
AH 1 is a straight colour photo
AH 2 is that image converted to IR using Convert to Black & White/IR in Photoshop.
AH 3 is an IR Image with little alteration.
AH 4 is AH 3 processed through Convert to Black & White/IR
You will see quite a lot of difference between AH 2 and AH 4.
AL 1 and AL 2 are two versions of the same image.
HA 1 and HA 2 are two versions of the same image.
LLC 1 and LLC 1 are similarly two version of the same image.
BVB 1 and BVB 2 have been added by popular demand.
T 1 and T 2 are versions of the same image but in each case a false sky has been added.
I realise IR photographs are probably never going to win a competition but they do add another dimension to my own work. It’s good to be able to go out on a bright day and experiment – then to return and experiment further in Photoshop. The best subjects are landscapes and seascapes that contain a lot of green foliage and interesting cloudy skies.
The poorest subjects are flowers since the true colours are never reproduced and the confusion caused is probably too much for us to accept.
I’m very glad I did spend the money to make the conversion. It has given a new lease of life to a camera that has been redundant for several years and it has provided me with new challenges to produce striking images.