Guide Needed for IR photography with 20D

[trucatus]

I followed the steps as in the instruction (i must say very good and easy to follow) from the channel using the R72 with 20D. I got the http://gallery.clubsnap.com/showphot...0/ppuser/16471
After adjusting I got http://gallery.clubsnap.com/showphot...0/ppuser/16471

Both very grainy. What is wrong and how should I shoot?

Thanks for all the helpful people out there in CS!

[TrailsofLife]

Hi, you shouldn't get only blue image. Try again, try to judge your exposure, maybe bracket your shots. Don't depend on your meter.

Do a custom WB on a bright patch of green grass or blue sky. You should get blueish trees and sepia tone sky.

If not, ask Panda.

[tomcat]

I have never gotten a orange cast with the use of R72 on my 20D even if I didn't carry out a custom white balance before shooting. Maybe you used an incorrect white balance while shooting.

Though a bit more tedious, it is still possible to correct the colours. You would like to reduce substantially the saturation of the Cyan and Blue colours after carrying out the colour channel swap, ie on the 'After' image you posted, and then correct the white balance further followed by curves and USM, etc until you get something like this:



Seems to have a slight hot-spot problem too. What lens did you used for this shot?

[trucatus]

Thanks. I used the 17-40 f4L. Also, I have to exposed this for 30 sec. Did a custom WB on green grass with the sun. The Grain was very bad.

[trucatus]

I don't believe it....I took a photo at ISO 100 f22 and R72 filter on exposed in bright daylight for 3 full minutes....still underexposed !!! Is that what IR with Canon all about....Long long exposure?

[eawtan]

Try f4 or f5.6. If the exposure is still too long, try ISO 200 or 400 ..

Originally Posted by trucatus I don't believe it....I took a photo at ISO 100 f22 and R72 filter on exposed in bright daylight for 3 full minutes....still underexposed !!! Is that what IR with Canon all about....Long long exposure?

[TrailsofLife]

Dun go beyond f8, smaller fstop cause hotspot. f5.6 should do the trick.

You still use camera metering? Try aperture piority(AV) +1 to +2 stop?

Also PM PandaOng, he's the expert in 20D.

Noise-wise, use neat image.

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by trucatus I don't believe it....I took a photo at ISO 100 f22 and R72 filter on exposed in bright daylight for 3 full minutes....still underexposed !!! Is that what IR with Canon all about....Long long exposure?

Just CWB, use Manual, set to f/5.6-8, ISO 400, 20-30s in bright sunlight and you should get an IR image that's post-processible to something like this..


25s, f/8.0 at 25.0mm ISO 400
Good luck.

[PandaOng]

Originally Posted by trucatus I don't believe it....I took a photo at ISO 100 f22 and R72 filter on exposed in bright daylight for 3 full minutes....still underexposed !!! Is that what IR with Canon all about....Long long exposure?

Hi Trucatus.....do not get fustrated. Just keep on trying and you will get what you want.

Some things just to make it correct??
1)What color of the picture did you did you White balance on. Mine usually turn out reddish for my cwb shot. I am using green leaves like you have done. usually will used about ISO 400 F4 - 5.6 and about 1s - 2s for my white balance shot

2) why you shoot with f22?? that is way to dark for 20D....my usually setting is f8 ISO 100 about 25-30s....

you shoot get a tone closed to sepia tone. but not the orange tone that you get from you pic.

this is what you should get from the cam


Well, keep on trying and you will get it very fast...

[trucatus]

I am not frustrated....I shoot f22 with hyperfocal....thought that can give me a sharper picture. I must fiest say you guys are very helpful. I am impressed and glad. I will try with the setting PandaOng suggest. Since the filter is so costly, will make sure have to take some reall good IR pic with it. So that should be the color in default.....hmm....will try today if the sun allows. Cheers...
One more thing...what about the histogram? Where should the exposure show? Mine is 1/3 from the left and I think that is underexposed.

[trucatus]

Tomcat forgot to mention that you are very good in PS color adjustment...

[loupgarou]

tomcat, is that picture from a 20D?

the way I've tested it, 20D pictures come out very red, even setting white balance to 2000K (the lowest possible), it is still red. there is no point doing custom white balance on 20D, auto white balance + RAW processing lets you set the custom balance to any value anyway, since setting to 2000K already still red, it means not further adjustable.

I've yet to play around further, one of the things I notice is chrominance noise levels are pretty high once you channel swap, so you must get your exposure correct (or even slightly over exposed)


panda ong, any input?

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by loupgarou tomcat, is that picture from a 20D? the way I've tested it, 20D pictures come out very red, even setting white balance to 2000K (the lowest possible), it is still red. there is no point doing custom white balance on 20D, auto white balance + RAW processing lets you set the custom balance to any value anyway, since setting to 2000K already still red, it means not further adjustable. I've yet to play around further, one of the things I notice is chrominance noise levels are pretty high once you channel swap, so you must get your exposure correct (or even slightly over exposed) panda ong, any input?

Yes it is from my 20D.

If you do CWB, the 20D will go lower than 2000K. Setting the WB by selecting the colour temperature is not the CWB procedure that is generally referred to in the IR FAQ here.

Properly CWBed, you should get a coloured IR image similar to the one that Panda Ong had posted. If you set the WB to 2000K, the colour of the IR image obtained is somewhat purplish red. I get that when I use the Olympus E300 for IR photography because it's One-Touch CWB cannot deal with such a strong colour cast and I have to set the WB manually to the lowest selectable (2000K).

It is true that if you shoot and processed in RAW, you can still adjust the WB in the RAW conversion software to the correct level quite easily depending on the software (some are easier than others). It is just that if you CWB during the shoot, you can check the exposure levels more easily on the LCD display than you can with a strongly colour-casted image from a non-CWB image. Also, it is even easier and faster to correct the WB in the RAW conversion software as the bulk of the correction has already been carried out in-camera.

I think generally speaking, IR images post-processed from deeply underexposed shots tend to get very noisy. That's why I would usually check and adjust the exposure manually until I get images that are not so underexposed. The saving grace is that IR enthusiasts are very much more forgiving of noisy IR images than normal photographers as they expect their IR images to look like their IR film counterparts which are generally noisier than non-IR photos.

[trucatus]

Is it normal after taking a pic the camera take ages to process the image?
I am talking about 20D.

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by trucatus Is it normal after taking a pic the camera take ages to process the image? I am talking about 20D.

I think you need to be more specific in explaining what you mean by 'the camera take ages to process the image'.
Are you taking photos in jpeg or RAW? In one-shot or continuous mode?
According to the specs, the 20D is capable of 5 fps and will take up more than 20 shots in jpeg and 6 shots in RAW before the buffer is filled up. So are you talking about the shot-to-shot interval or the time it takes to download the buffer after it is filled up?

If you are taking in one-shot mode and is referring to the duration of the blinking red light, then another factor comes into play and that is the writing speed of the CF card that you are using. If you are using an older and slower CF card, then it could seem like 'ages' relatively speaking, compared to the much faster cards like Lexar 80X and Sandisk Extreme I, II & III cards. A reviewer once reported that he could shoot 55 full-sized shots in jpeg in continuous mode if he used a 1G Sandisk Extreme CF card instead of the 23 shots max stated in the camera specifications.

[trucatus]

After snapping with the long exposure, it took almost two minute before "busy" in the LCD goes off. Shooting in One Shot mode. Using a high speed card. Large jpeg.
Is that normal?

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by trucatus After snapping with the long exposure, it took almost two minute before "busy" in the LCD goes off. Shooting in One Shot mode. Using a high speed card. Large jpeg. Is that normal?

How long is 'long'? Are you talking about 1 minute and longer?
Could it be because you have turn 'On' the Custom Function C-Fn-02 (Long exposure noise reduction)?

If you did, then after the picture is taken, the time required for the noise reduction processing to be carried out would be equal to that of the original exposure time ie if the original exposure time is 2 minutes, then the camera would be 'busy' for another 2 minutes before you can use it again.

You don't really need to turn on the noise reduction function for IR shooting if you use the settings we had suggested as the timing required is seldom more than 30s and not really that noisy if you exposed properly.

[trucatus]

Yes my C-Fn-02 is always on....hmmm I'll try switching it off then. Thanks. BTW, the oragne cast of my posted pics is due to underexpose. I tried f5.6 at 3 muntues today it seens rather good. I'll poist it later after touch up. BTW, how to adjust the trees to make it white?

[TrailsofLife]

Hi,

Have you do the Channel switch already? If yes, what Teerex tought me is to go to hue&saturation, select the yellow channel, and slide the lightness until the yellow disappear.

Taking IR with DSLR shouldn't be so difficult. Just do the CWB and start shooting.

Post-process should be just channel switch and maybe adjust contrast abit depending on exposure.

That's about it. Join the next outing, PandaOng is going, you can do a practice with him.

Lastly, IR is an effect, the more important part is the composition.

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by trucatus Yes my C-Fn-02 is always on....hmmm I'll try switching it off then. Thanks. BTW, the oragne cast of my posted pics is due to underexpose. I tried f5.6 at 3 muntues today it seens rather good. I'll poist it later after touch up. BTW, how to adjust the trees to make it white?

If you are using Photoshop or similar software, follow the procedure in this video clip to remove colour cast and to 'tell' Photoshop that the foliage should be white in colour....
http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutor.../colorfix.html