(July-August, 2020) As noted in an earlier blog post, I recently purchased an infrared-modified digital camera and am having way too much fun photographing Iowa in IR. I first shot infrared years ago during my film days and always enjoyed the look of stark black and white photos with ghostly-white foliage. Switching to digital IR opens new realms of possibility for my photography.

Like film, these digital enhanced color IR images can be processed many different ways – resulting in different moods and emotional responses to the images. Some images work equally well in color as in black and white – others do not. Here, I have chosen a somewhat stylized and dreamlike style for both the color and black and white images. I hope you enjoy the results.

Iowa in Enhanced Color Infrared

Images from around southern Iowa in enhanced color IR:

Iowa in Black and White Infrared

Images from around southern Iowa in warm-tone black and white:

Wrapping Up

For those of you who care about technical details, read on. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the images and that’s all for now!

Technical Details

Here is a quick overview of my equipment, infrared shooting concerns, and post-processing tools and digital workflow.

The Camera & IR Conversions

My IR camera is a used Sony A7R-II mirrorless digital camera modified for enhanced color infrared (665 nm). I purchased the used camera with conversion from lifepixel.com, but there are other companies out there doing such conversions.

Camera conversion is required since today’s digital camera sensors are incredibly red-sensitive and require an IR-blocking filter to give normal visible light images. Converting a digital camera generally involves removing and/or replacing this IR blocking filter from the camera sensor.

There are several available IR conversion filters available passing different wavelengths or ranges of IR and visible light. I chose the Enhanced Color (665 nm) filter based on the style of IR photos I wanted to generate. See LifePixel or other sites for examples of the different style IR filters and images.

Mirrorless vs. DSLR Cameras for IR

I chose a mirrorless digital camera vs. a mirrored DSLR for ease of use. I prefer the mirrorless system since it shows exactly what the sensor sees – what-you-see-is-what-you-get. You can see immediately an accurate IR preview image in the viewfinder screen – including any custom white balance that may have been set in-camera.

With a DSLR, you see a visible light view through the viewfinder and can only see the IR result once the image is taken. For DSLR configurations where an over-the-lens IR filter is used, the viewfinder view is so dark that composing an image and focusing may be problematic.

IR Lens Issues

One surprising issue encountered in IR photography is that lenses that work perfectly well in visible light may perform poorly in IR. Many lenses will have a noticeable IR hot-spot. A quick online search will give lists of lenses with good/bad IR performance.

To correct for lens IR hot-spot, either choose a lens with good IR characteristics or adjust in post-processing using flat-field images.

On Flat-Field and Custom White Balance Images

Flat field correction is an advanced technique involving taking an image of an IR blank surface (sky or white/grey card…) with same or close lens settings and lighting as image to be corrected. Post-processing tools such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop can then correct an image using the matching flat field. Look online for details on flat-fielding techniques.

A bonus to taking flat fields is that the same image can be used to create or update a custom white balance image for use in post-processing (yet another advanced technique to learn).

Digital Post-Processing

Digital post-processing will vary depending on each image and by the artistic vision you are working towards. Here are the general software tools and digital workflow I use.

Software Tools

Here are the main software tools I use for digital post-processing IR:

• Adobe Lightroom Classic (LR)
• Adobe Photoshop (PS)
• NIK Collection: Color FX Pro 4
• NIK Collection: Silver FX Pro 2

Digital Workflow

The post-processing digital workflow I generally use involves the following:

• Download RAW images from camera to the computer
• Import/edit RAW images in LR
  • (First time or as needed) Setup a custom white balance image in LR
  • Import RAW images into LR
  • Import flat field(FF) images or add existing FF folder to LR selection
  • Triage images and select ones to further process
  • Apply any flat field corrections to selected images
  • Apply any custom color balance
  • Apply any lens corrections
  • Touch up images – dust spot removal, crop, etc.
• Edit in PS
  • Adjustment layer: Levels
  • Adjustment layer: Channel Mixer (swap red/blue channels)
  • Adjustment layer: Hue/saturation (adjust blues and yellows)
  • Remove color cast & apply other creative adjustments
• Edit in LR
  • Other image tweaks, spot removal, crop, etc.
• Edit in Color FX Pro and/or Silver FX Pro
• Final tweaks in LR
• Done – ready for image export, printing, etc.

Final Wrap Up

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed these IR images and a look at the details behind the scenes. Vast amounts of info regarding infrared photography and digital image processing are available on-line – you have but to look. Enjoy!