Beyond the Visible....

A few years ago I found a film called Kodak HIE. It came in a yellow and black box. To load it into the camera you needed to hide in the dark, and when processing it do the same. It was pretty difficult to use too, you had to guess your exposures and assume a ISO rating, which I have now forgot. 

The images if you just got it right were superb. The ethereal world of the Infra Red image was enough to inspire you to put aside the difficulties of using the film and head out as soon as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. For anyone wanting to delve deeper into the film side then I'd recommend the book "Infrared Photography Handbook" by Laurie White (Amherst Media, Inc). I think that the Kodak Film is now discontinued, but I might be wrong, I'd check that out if you were keen to try it.

So bringing us right into the age of digital photography, after looking around on the web it transpired that the digital camera could take beautiful IR images. Having previously dabbled with the concept years earlier I thought I'd try it out.

This is where it got interesting. So you've got a digital camera? My first attempts based on the details gathered from evenings browsing the web were slightly disappointing. Something was wrong. I've got the filter (they cost a fair amount too), stuck it on the camera and cranked the exposure. Huh? Something was not quite right. 

Further research seemed to point the finger in the direction of the sensitivity of the sensor to IR wavelengths (there's a lot of Science here too, not for the fainthearted...) I had managed to buy a pretty impervious beast to the good intentions of the IR wavelengths. As well as that the dreaded white balance crept in. Red images! Not good.