Infrared Light Characteristics

Here is a photo that I shot this morning in our living room.  This is an Asiatic Lily plant sitting in sunlight coming through one of our living room windows.  I've mentioned a few things in previous blog entries about infrared light but this photo is a good example showing a few of these unique characteristics.

First, the chlorophyll is glowing white which makes the green leaves render as a very bright white in infrared.  All else inside the house is dark.  It is like the lily plant is illuminated from within itself!  

I've also mentioned that another characteristic of infrared imaging is exceptional clarity.  This is certainly visible in this shot but, honestly, it is really noticeable outdoors when shooting a wide landscape shot.  Infrared light seems to see through much of the haze that our human eyes see in visible light.  Well, it doesn't see "through it".  The haze that we see simply isn't visible in the infrared wavelengths.

There is such thing as haze and clouds only visible in infrared light though.  We can't see this haze and clouds with human eyes nor with everyday cameras.  It is relatively rare but it can be picked up in infrared imaging.  These are called infralucent clouds by some.  (I'm not sure if this is an official term.)  Satellites using infrared imaging for weather do pick up these clouds at high altitudes.  These very high altitude clouds trap solar radiation and therefore will be visible in infrared wavelengths.  

On the other hand, all those things in our atmosphere that make our eyes see the stars twinkling and shaking like they had too much coffee...  or make the views through a telescope of the moon or sun appear to warp constantly in a wavy pattern...  these atmospheric disturbances are typically not seen in the infrared wavelengths.  It is like an infrared camera cuts right through these atmospheric disturbances.  In reality, we're just seeing completely different wavelengths of light.  Infrared imaging provides a clarity that simply cannot be captured on most days in visible light.  

In this photo, above, I like how the room looks completely darkened while the leaves of the lily are a bright contrasty white.  In visible light that the human eye sees, the living room is bathed in bright daylight making the living room brighter than it is any other time of day but that is not seen in infrared light.  We only see the chlorophyll glowing brightly in a darkened room.  Solar radiation is bouncing off the foil-backed wrapper around the flower pot too so that is brightly illuminated as well.  

People and fabrics look very different in infrared light too.  Even painted walls look very different.  The paint becomes semi-transparent!  Some fabrics also become partially transparent and colors render in an unexpected way.  I'll write more about that in a future blog entry.  

I hope to capture a few wide landscape images in infrared light soon.  I'm waiting for the leaves to be fully developed.  Well...  we need to get out of the house and out of the backyard for me to do this too and we haven't been doing that at all this year due to my health so far this year.  I do hope to get out and about soon though especially with a couple of cameras and lenses in a bag.