Guide to Digital Infrared Photography

Lloyd Chambers, one of this site's advertisers, has just published what has to be the leading reference on digital infrared. From the e-book description:

"Hundreds of hours of  shooting, tests, and analysis went into preparing the Guide over the course of 2006 and 2007. You simply will not find a book (or stack of books) that contain anywhere near the wealth of detailed and accurate and practical information that you will find in this guide.

• Overview—what infrared is, what to expect when starting out;
• Camera selection—digital SLR, point and shoot, filters vs conversion;
• Camera image examples—numerous examples and what to expect from the Fuji F30-IR, Fuji S6000fd-IR, Canon EOS 5D-IR, Nikon D70-IR, Nikon D200-IR;
• Focusing and backfocus, including a special tip for Canon EOS users;
• Sharpness issues of multiple kinds;
• Filtration, both external and internal;
• Exposure and white balance;
• Hot spots and how to both avoid and work around them in post-processing;
• Lenses, including “hot spot” and backfocus assessments; 
• Workflow: swapping and inverting color channels, techniques for grayscale conversion, color expansion, selective color, RAW-file conversion, color space and gamut, 16-bit vs 8-bit;
• Photoshop actions and javascripts for generating variants of an image in both layered and contact sheet form, helping you to visualize the creative possibilities;
• Resources—where to find additional information on camera conversions, filters, books, web sites, etc.

It's on the expensive side for a photo book, but if you're seriously interested in the subject, you gotta have it. Click on the ad link under "Sponsors" in the left-hand column to check out more about it (I found Lloyd's article in the ASMP NorCal Quarterly, a link to which you can find on the site, particularly interesting—in fact, the whole issue (it's a .PDF) is good, and worth downloading).

_______________

Mike

Comments

[Ken Tanaka]

I've long wondered what the allure of this techie trick photography is, whether on film or in bits. In film-only days it was one of those weird techniques that became cliché (even in amateur photo clubs) for the perennial black sky/white tree snaps. Gee, cool.

But now that we can digitally manipulate the appearance of an image so easily I'm really wondering what the point of infrared photography might be (aside from looking for heat leaks).

I salute Mr. Chambers for assembling such a guide. But I can make my own white trees for free.

[John]

So Ken, can you cut through haze in Photoshop and reveal cloud or distant detail that you don't see in a visible light exposure? Or (assuming you shoot with an unmodified camera) can you get long exposures as well. Shooting digital IR for real is a whole lot different from faking it.

[KeithAlanK]

There's two new web resources for people interested in IR photography.
The IR Buzz Blog:
http://www.irbuzz.blogspot.com/

IR Photography Community Forum:
http://lulalake.conforums.com/index.cgi

[Mike]

Now, now, Ken...I don't shoot or care for IR either, but my taste doesn't obligate anybody else so far as I know. Lots and lots of people like, and are interested in, IR, and it's their call for their work, right?

Mike

[KeithB]

In Steve Johnson's new landscape photography book he mentions an anecdote about taking a picture at Crater Lake and being able to see Mount Shasta in the resulting image--though he could not see it with his eye. His camera did not have an IR blocking filter.