Infrared and digital cameras

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I was wondering what is necessary to take infrared pictures with a digital camera. Obviously the film can't be changed to infrared, so is there a filter one must buy? How much do these cost?

-- Ben Bardill (koolben@yahoo.com), February 09, 2000

Answers

If the CCD sensors in digital cameras were made sensitive to infra-red light, it would upset the colour balance for normal use. I should think that the manufacturers go to great lengths to reduce the infra-red sensitivity.

Just add infra-red photography to the long list of things that digital cameras are no good at.

Having said that, I've been playing with a little monochrome surveillance CCTV camera with a sensitivity of 0.1 Lux ! It has built-in infra-red illumination and can literally see in the dark, up to about 3meters away anyway. Add that to a capture card on the PC and you can get useable stills in B&W. The focus shifts pretty drastically from visible to infra-red though.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 10, 2000.


Certain digital cameras are more susceptible to IR then others. I know the 7/8/9xx range of Nikon Coolpix have some limited IR capabilities. Unfortunately it is most sensitive to one channel and after putting in a IR filter, the results are usually mono-chromatic.

If you want to see some of the results check this link
http://www.ec heng.com/digital_photo/infrared.html

-keat

-- Keat Lim (keatlim@my-deja.com), February 10, 2000.


Try the following link - might be surprised at the infra red quality of the 950 in both colour and mono

http://home.twcny.rr.com/scho/newpics/intro.html

Ian Lyons

-- Ian Lyons (ilyons@msn.com), February 13, 2000.


I,ve had no problem taking monochrome IR shots with an old Kodak DCS120 camera and recently with the Nikon Coolpix 950. All you need is an (opaque) filter for IR. I use Kodak 3"x3" gels #87B and #88A with spectacular results. Just hold the filter square in front of the lens and let the camera take care of the exposure automatically. You'll need a tripod since exposures seem to be about 1/4 or 1/2 second. You'll not see anything through the optical viewfinder, but the surreal monochromatic IR image will pop up on the LCD screen ( tricky to see in full sunlight though). Get the Kodak gels through a pro photo dealer, or spend a lot more dosh for German manufacturer B&W glass 37mm filters, plus 28 to 37mm adapter for the Nikon CP950. High-end pro cameras, I believe, build in an IR blocking filter, so you may not be able to get IR shots with those. Finally, adjust the levels in Photoshop or similar, to get the skies absolutely black, and foliage and clouds a glowing white. Beautiful! Good luck! Mike Saxon

-- Mike Saxon (msaxon@brunet.bn), March 16, 2000.

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