tonybear wrote:
Howdy Hoggers,
I'm currenty engaged in doing researching on purchasing a mirrorless bridge or MILC camera and having it converted for IR photography. I'm conversing with experts from LifePixel regarding the issues of "Hot Spots" which I understand that many of these models have, regarding IR image capture.
I'd like you Hoggers, who might already have gone down this IR conversion path, to chime in what your experience has been, particularly with regarding to the presence of "IR Hot Spots" in various models of mirrorless bridge or MILC cameras. How do you avoid them, if your camera model shows the defect, or is your converted IR bridge or MILC relative free of such IR defects.
Regards,
Tony Gomez
Howdy Hoggers, br I'm currenty engaged in doing re... (
show quote)
Are IR conversions evem done on bridge cameras? The sensor is not very accessible as it is on a camera with changeable lenses.
One piece of advice is to modify a mirrorless camera. The mirrorless can achieve perfect focus no matter what wavelengths you are using. A DSLR can be adjusted to work properly with one lens. But I prefer it to focus properly with any AF lens that the camera supports.
I have an older Sony A55 converted, but I get good focus only if I manually focus.
And I have a mirrorless Olympus EM5ii modified to full spectrum and it achieves perfect focus with all my Olympus lenses
As for hot spots, it is true that the older lenses have no hot spot issues that I am aware of. I have many older lenses, and I don't see hot spots with them. But I have to manually focus.
The one lens I use the most for IR is the Olympus 14-42mm kit lens. It is small, and I see no hot spots. I also have the more expensive 12-40mm f2.8. And with this lens, I do see hot spots. I also have the 12-100mm f4, and I intend to try it out with IR for hot spots. But it is not tiny.
If you are interested, here is a link to the B&W Forum where I walked through steps starting with a RAW to obtaining a color or B&W results. This example used a 590nm filter on a full spectrum modification.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-746810-1.htmlAnd this link identifies a link to a site by Rob Shea who has put together a downloadable package for processing IR images. I didn't download his package, but instead used his directions to make my own and they work great in Lightroom.
Also in this link, I showed that when you use RAW images, it really doesn't matter what white balance you start with. This is not the case if you shoot JPEG by the way. I purposely used several built in white balances and showed that I can still end up with the same results.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-746058-1.htmlRecently, I have been having fun with a Candy Pink look. This requires a full spectrum conversion and also requires stacking 3 filters with the result that Sunny Balance can be used, and there is no post processing needed. The results look like this straight from the camera. For this look, I used a Vivitar X1 filter (which is light YellowGreen) and a B+W KB20 filter and finally an 80B filter. 80A or 80C can be substituted and will impact the intensity of the Pink color. Notice that everything not green vegetation remains unchanged.
Note: With 3 stacked filters, to avoid vignetting, I did use larger filters with step up rings.
The 2nd image is using a filter Kolari calls a ChromeIR filter. Again, a full spectrum conversion, and no post processing, but the green grass has more of a rust look.
Adding a 3rd look. With the 3 filter stack, change the first filter from the Vivitar X1 (YellowGreen filter) to an Asanuma YG(X0) filter. Slightly different Yellow Green filter and the result is entirely different.