Colour Infrared Photography to Wow Your Audience!

[@wooddogg8]

Straight, to the point and well explained. Thank you sir!!

[@RobinWhalley]

You're very welcome. Thank you.

[@alanthompson3851]

Thankyou Robin for the work around to avoid setting an IR profile now it doesn’t work with latest Mac software.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome and I hope you find it useful. I also don't think its the Mac software to blam for profiles not working. I think Adobe changed the way the profiles work in their software.

[@andydungan3335]

Yes please to the B&W infrared video!

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. I will add it to my list.

[@pauljenkin297]

Brilliant. Thank you, Robin; this is very much appreciated.

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful. Thank you.

[@hiramabiff885]

I've been trying to help a friend in her beginning experience in IR. This video is bang on. Many thanks.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. I'm pleased you liked it and I hope it helps your friend.

[@rich9914]

Yes to the video on processing black and white infrared And this video is most helpful thank you

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. It's on the list.

[@rikarthur8969]

Top quality presentation, crystal clear delivery, relevant and extremely helpful to an infrared novice. I do hope you get round to preparing a B+W focused video as this would be even more relevant to my practise. Thanks

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. Yes, I still hope to do a B&W infrared video but I will probably wait until summer when more people are likely to be interested.

[@jayabramson6702]

I’ll toss my vote in for the black and white IR video please Robin!

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank for letting me know.

[@ladybuddy]

You’ve made everything so clear! Thank you so much!

[@RobinWhalley]

You are so welcome. Thank you

[@mhouslay7281]

Brilliant video. So glad that I found this. Such insights - super helpful. I have a Sony NEX7 with full spectrum conversion and use various filters. But don’t use either Photoshop or Lightroom so haven’t been able to employ the traditional channel swap approach. Rather I have used Luminar Neo and had some good results, albeit more by trial and error. Now after watching your great video it’s given me a little of ideas and more understanding of what I have been doing and should be doing. Big thanks. Have 👍 and subscribed so will look forward to watching more videos from you.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. It’s great to have helped.

[@kbqvist]

Interesting approach to white ballance; thank you!

[@RobinWhalley]

My pleasure! I hope that you find it useful.

[@gchristopherklug]

More IR! Please! How can I subscribe to your newsletter?

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I'll add something to my list. As for my newsletter, try this page lenscraft.co.uk/lenscraft-photography-blog/photography-newsletter/. It's the archive so as well as signing up you can see some of the previous editions.

[@gchristopherklug]

@@RobinWhalley thank you Robin

[@gchristopherklug]

@@RobinWhalley subscribed

[@toomuchkit964]

Hello Robin thank you for the video. I have an Olympus EM5 converted to 720nm and use Affinity to convert to B/W and except for the halo effect get reasonable results, . I have a macro using Levels, channel swap, curves together with black and white adjustment. Once basic conversion is done, I then adjust the various elements to taste. With your expertise, it would be great to see, what you could achieve in Affinity.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. I do have it on my list to do more infrared processing videos. Time is the enemy at the moment though. I'll see what I can do.

[@toomuchkit964]

Thank you. No pressure, @@RobinWhalley

[@mark1hancock]

Great tutorial, the way you demonstrate how to use white balance is especially helpful. I have just started to explore infrared photography and have just obtained a filter for my 12-40 Olympus lens on an EM1 Mark 3 but there are bright spots in the centre. I may need to experiment with another lens from what I understand.

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful. Thank you.

[@davestokes3446]

Using wider apertures helps reduce the "hot spot". A lens hood also helps.

[@pete-c]

More Infrared please Robin, and maybe some post using Affinity Photo, many thanks for all your posted info

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I'll see what I can do but I don't know about the post processing in Affinity Photo. I tend to use plugins for IR.

[@user-yt6bv6us7e]

I would like to see IR photo developement in affinity photo2. Color and black and white.

[@RobinWhalley]

THanks. I will do a video about this but it won't really use Affinity Photo or Photoshop because I don't use them for my processing. Most of my work is done using Plugins as it's far easier and often produces much better results.

[@lloydstuartm.d.5625]

Hi Robin, I found you through your Affinity Photo videos which are always excellent. I don't suppose you could do an IR video for us Affinity Photo users?

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I'm asked for this this quite frequently and always have the same question - what is it that you want to see when you say IR processing? If you can give me some ideas, I may be able to create a video; otherwise, I'm just trying to guess. Thanks

[@lloydstuartm.d.5625]

@@RobinWhalley Robin, you are selling yourself short! As the master of Affinity photo, anything you put out there would be immensely helpful. When I say IR processing, I mean starting with a photo shot with a camera converted to IR and going through your workflow. Starting with the white balance and going through common adjustments you would make would be amazing for us struggling photographers just getting into IR photography. Please help! Your biggest fan from Atlanta...

[@TheDonnaCrosby]

I have converted my d800 to full spectrum. I have the ir chrome filter on it now it's so much fun. Just took it to the eastern Sierra...

[@RobinWhalley]

I can imagine you will be able to achieve some great shots with that. I took a little micro 43 GX1 with a 720nm conversion to Death Valley once. It performed amazingly well with all that light.

[@yuidfbse]

I'm so confused. I was under the absolute impression that to shoot IR the first mandatory thing to do is convert the camera itself and remove the built-in IR filter that sits in front of the sensor. Isn't that right? So how is it that many people claim to take IR photos by just by adding an IR filter screwed-in the front of the lens and leaving the camera itself unconverted with the built-in IR cut filter in place?

[@RobinWhalley]

Although digital cameras have IR cut filters covering the sensors, these aren't 100% effective and will allow some IR light through. Some cameras also have a weak filter. You can test yours by looking at the end of a TV remote on the back of the camera. If you see the bulb light up when you press a button on the remote, you are seeing IR light. Try testing your phone as well as that might capture IR light. Using an IR filter on any regular digital camera will slow the shutter speed so you will end up needing a tripod in most cases. You will also find that you can't use strong IR filters on a camera that hasn't been converted. A 665nm filter is probably a good one to try. If you go beyond 720nm you might not see an IR effect and the shutter speed will shoot up. I hope this helps.

[@tomgardner9963]

I'd like to add my interest in a workflow for processing an image taken with an 850nm filter with AF2.

[@RobinWhalley]

I'm sorry, I don't have a camera converted with such a strong filter and I'm not in a position to take any images with one at present.

[@marclabro]

nice tuto. Do you mean that LRC cannot have temp slider lower than 2000 while ACR can do that ? personnally, with my D5600 full spectrum converted camera and lifepixel 665nm, I am using CLIR pack inside LRC and Photoshop with tons of camera profiles and LRC color swap

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. To answer your question, no that isn't what I was trying to show in the video. Both Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW are limited by how much we can move the sliders and it's not enough to correct IR images. Camera profiles get around this for us by setting a false white point that allows sufficient range in the sliders. What I did in the video was process the image initially. I then converted it to a Smart Object so that when the Adobe Camera RAW filter is applied a to the Smart Object it resets the white balance sliders to the centre. You can then move the over to the left to get more range. It's just an easy solution for someone who doesn't want to mess around creating or finding camera profiles.

[@marclabro]

thank you. I noticed in that video and new one for BW that you used dxo pure raw. again, when do you process the color profile in raw : LRC or dxo,... ? the very first steps of your workflow are "missing" in your video and that's white balance part is critical if you want to convert a pink 665nm raw to a blue one with orange sky. This is where Tonee in CLIR made ana amazing job, including color swap directly in raw in LRC. But i am looking for a simplified method as you use.

[@kirklaws-chapman7281]

Very interesting and helpful, Robin. I'm planning on getting an underused X-Pro 2 to IR and had planned to go for a 720nm conversion and concentrate on B&W, but now I'm having second thoughts, so would very much like to see your suggested video on post processing for B&W IR. I also wonder if you've looked at using Affinity Photo or Photolab as post process software for IR images? One further question, if I may, is how do you approach camera settings for ISO, exposure and focus. In the days of film, I dabbled with an on camera filter (Hoya IR72) and recall having to compensate focus settings to try and avoid overly 'soft' images due to the differnce in light wavelengths. Does the same apply for a digital camera that's been converted? Thanks as always for the great content and your inspiring approach.

[@RobinWhalley]

I have several approaches for post-processing and it really depends on what I want to achieve. I'll work some of these up into a video or perhaps a couple of videos. In terms of digital IR I tend to shoot as I would a digital camera and the same goes for focusing. That said, I've never had a DSLR converted and believe some of those will need to have the lens recalibrated for the reason you mention. With the likes of the Fuji and Micro 43 cameras it's on sensor focusing so no lens calibration required. Do be careful though if you are thinking of converting an X-Pro 2. Almost all my Fuji lenses suffer from hot spots. The 18-135 is the only exception so I use that most of the time with the XT2. The Olympus and Panasonic lenses seem much better although some aren't perfect. I think Life Pixel has a list of hot spot prone lenses on their website. It would be worth checking.

[@kirklaws-chapman7281]

@@RobinWhalley Thanks for the additional information and opinions, Robin. It all makes sense and your point about the Fuji lens is well made and noted. I have kept a number of my old Olympus Zuiko lenses (24mm f2.8, 28mm f2, 50mm f3.5 Macro, 55mm f2, 85mm f2, 135mm f2.8 and 200mm f4) and a Sigma 600mm f8 mirror lens that I can couple to my cameras with a Metabones Speed Booster and make use of focus peaking. All produce good results when used on my Fuji cameras (the wide lenses are only average, to be honest). I'll look forward to your follow up videos on this topic, as well as any others subjects you cover, and will also do some more research before committing to paying to convert the X-Pro2. Thanks again, Kirk

[@rustinggently]

B&W processing please

[@SidneyPratt]

Thanks.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome

[@m4roadrunner]

Yes please more b&w

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you. It's on my list.