I took the photo above on my lunch break yesterday. It was an enlightening day. Because the camera's exposure meter measures visible light while the sensor's been converted to see infrared light, it's not very accurate. I wrote about this yesterday, but at that time I was under the impression that the difference would be fairly standard -like if you always over expose by 2/3 you'll generally get good results. And this is why testing is so important.
Turns out that the exposure varied, sometimes wildly. In fact, for awhile I was underexposing according to the exposure meter. So, the lesson learned here is that it's important to know how to use your histogram to determine exposure when playing with infrared. RAW is a good idea as well since it gives you some leeway in post processing, and bracketing is also a good idea.
Another surprise was that my copy of DPP (Canon's RAW software that comes with their cameras) couldn't open the RAW files from the XTi. So, I had to download ufRAW in order to work with the files. I don't like it nearly as much as I like DPP (although it may just be that I'm used to DPP), so I'm hoping there may just be an update for DPP or something?
Anyway, I feel like I have the technical stuff down at this point so last night I spent some time searching Flickr for infrared photos to see what kinds of subjects and compositions I like in order to get ideas for my own photos while traveling. I favorited some. If you're interested in seeing them, click this link to go to my photostream and then click on "Favorites" under my name.
2 comments:
I've been thinking of getting a body converted to IR, so your experiences will come in handy.
BTW -- I added a link to your blog on mine: http://www.weekendshoot.blogspot.com
Wow!! Amazing post! I came to know the advantages of Infrared Converted Camera. I got one on rent as well last month. One of my cousins browsed Studio Hire, which also offers camera equipments on best rental pricing.
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