Comparison Images

Yesterday, while I was writing about my infrared converted camera, I realized that perhaps I should shoot some images for a comparison between visible light in color, visible light in monochrome and infrared in monochrome.    

This morning I shot a photo of our backyard in color in visible light followed by a monochrome image in visible light with one camera body and then moved the lens over to my camera body that now only shoots in infrared and shot a monochrome infrared photo.  To keep things as controlled as possible, I used the same lens with the aperture set at f5.6 for both cameras.  

The wavelengths of light that the infrared camera captures are in a relatively narrow band of light so I needed to slow the shutter speed down a bit for the infrared image so I could capture a bit more light.  Conversely, since visible light is a much broader band of light for our human eyes, I needed to use a faster shutter speed to cut back on the available light.  Although the infrared camera needs a longer shutter speed, I can still easily shoot steady images while handholding the camera.  Actually, I think the infrared image at right had a shutter speed of 1/250th second at base ISO so that is still a short shutter speed and easy to shoot without the use of a tripod.  

So, looking at the three images on the right, the top image is a typical color image capturing visible light...  there is a nice blue sky...  we can see the golden color of sunlight in the tree branches...  but the greens are very dark making it a little more difficult to see fine details in the greens.  I could adjust the curves in the green channel to get more light in those greens but, if overdone, it can begin to look unnatural, in my opinion.  Overall, this top color image looks natural.  (Note:  I should point out that this is a rather boring image because there really is no subject, no story, no point of interest.  This comparison is simply about how a particular scene looks in different wavelengths of light.)

The middle image was also capturing visible light but it is in monochrome.  It is a nice image but, admittedly, I could do more with this image in post-processing than I did here in this example.  Overall, the monochrome image here is nicely balanced.  

The bottom image is the image shot with the infrared camera.  Here we have far more contrast and clarity without losing mid-tones in muddiness and without clipping highlights.  Actually, I believe more detail is seen throughout the entire image even compared to the color visible light image at the top.  The deeply darkened sky makes for a very distinctive background allowing the bright, crisp trees in the foreground to pop out.  The hyper-clarity of textures in infrared light almost creates a three dimensional effect.  

One thing I have noticed is that shooting toward the sun in the infrared wavelengths makes my lenses more prone to lens flares.  I've found that this lens flaring problem arises more easily in the infrared wavelengths than in the visible light wavelengths for some reason.  In these photos, above, the sun is approximately 15-20° to the left of the top left corner of the frame.  For the infrared image in this situation, I needed to use my hand to block sunlight that was causing obvious lens flares in the middle of the frame.

Seeing lens flares in infrared reminds me that there are often problems in infrared with lens hotspots.  Fortunately, I have not experienced that yet with any of my lenses.  My infrared conversion also included a multi-layer anti-reflective filter which should help in minimizing any internal reflections bouncing off the sensor.  I do, however, see that this camera is now a bit more sensitive to typical lens flares when the sun is in front of me.  If the sun is out of the frame and far enough off at an angle, then I can utilize a lens hood to keep the sun from hitting the front glass element.  This definitely helps in eliminating lens flares.

That being said, I typically wouldn't be shooting most landscape images even remotely this close to into the sun regardless of whether I'm shooting in visible light or infrared light.  In both visible light and infrared light, the images look significantly better if the sun is behind you.  The sun could be behind to the left or behind to the right but as long as the sun is behind either shoulder, landscape images are far nicer.  Actually, I prefer the sun to be behind a shoulder rather than directly behind my head.  When the sun is directly behind your head, you lose sight of shadows which makes the image rather flat.  Shadows add depth to the scene but if everything is being illuminated from the same angle as our point of view then there are no shadows and the scene loses its depth.

All in all, if I am going to shoot in monochrome, I am liking shooting with this infrared camera for quite a few types of landscape scenes.  It certainly isn't the best way to shoot all landscapes but some scenes certainly are far more suitable for infrared imaging than others