CalArti

When I hold a camera in my hands I feel like I am in possession of key that can open up the wonders of the world. I feel all the more like that when there is something special, different, unusual and ephemeral about that key.

This summer I broke out a few of my last rolls of Kodak High Speed Infrared film. 35mm black and white film loaded into a glorious old Pentax LX – if ever there was a key capable of tumbling the barrels of the most obscure lock, this is it…

Oh well – not much to show for it. A stunted, shot up tree out standing in a scrubby field that I visit all too often.

To me the key might be an old camera loaded with expiring and extinct film. For others it might be the latest wonder digital camera and the uber-fabulous long lens. But in photography, keys are ever more available. And once you have that dream-bag full of keys, the real work begins: finding the locks…

With a few days of sunshine last week I finally got around to shooting out the last frames on a roll of Kodak High Speed Infrared, which had been languishing in the camera for a few months.

The sun may have been shining but the ground was still snow covered - and guess what? Bare trees and snow covered ground don’t lend themselves to that infrared look. Oh well - some of the shots from October were interesting.

I like this patch of trees - it is along a dirt road by a pull off where I frequently stop to chase dragonflies. Many a time when I’ve walked back to the car I’ve felt a yearning to just wander off into these little twisted trees, which seem to go on forever.

Link: http://www.markcassino.com/galleries/stream/2008/080712/08-0286_tu.htm

Where to go on a hot July afternoon? Find a shady spot, of course. That was my logic last Thursday, when I found myself back in a clearing in the Allegan Forest - off of a barricaded two track, off of some seasonal road, off of 122nd avenue, off of M89. It was a place I’ve never been to before – I need to find more spots like that.

You wouldn’t expect that I’d get tired of shooting dragonflies – it seems to take longer every season, but this week I finally lost the dragonfly vibe. Though the fields were teeming with blue dashers and more than a few skimmers of various sorts, I left the digital camera and the macro rig behind. I wandered back into the clearing with a trusty Pentax LX loaded with Rollei IR 400 film, a couple of zoom lenses, and an R72 filter.

I shot two rolls of the Rollei film – 72 frames, but with bracketing only about 20 different compositions. Digital has really spoiled me – I feel like I’ve wasted an afternoon if I don’t take 200 shots. That is one of the great perils of digital photography - you become your own army of monkeys, pounding at the shutter button. Accidental successes seem to be triumphs, but it’s hard to figure out how you got there and recreate the work. Not to mention that accidnets have no concept behind them.

Well - back to the fields and forest. I found a pearl in the sandy soil, often the case there.

This was my third session with the Rollei film. It was shot with the R72 filter, metered though the lens with the ISO set at 200 (thanks, Ray!) Film was developed in HC110, Dil H (1:66) at 20C for 24 minutes, with very low agitation (gentle agitation every 3 minutes for the first 12, then every 60 seconds.) I like it, but I don’t see it as a replacement for HEI. It’s much too slow with the R72 filter, and I really like using a plain red filter and being able to check and tweak the composition as I’m hitting the shutter button.

Rollei IR 400, with an R72 filter, is also a pretty high contrast film. Despite my attempt at using HC110 as a compensating developer, the film is a tough beast to tame with shadow areas virtually clear on the negative. But, when it comes to B&W shots, contrast is your friend. Not a friend I’ve really come to terms with, but working with this film has been a big boost in helping me understand and work with higher contrast mono shots.

A few months ago I ordered what will no doubt be my last rolls of Kodak High Speed Infrared film. It’s sad to see an old standby pass on, but while online buying film, I decided to pick up a few rolls of Rollei IR400.

I was looking for a film that could produce the same startling infrared affect that the Kodak film delivered. After shooting a couple of test rolls, it seems that the Rollei film is certainly up to that task. Here are a few first impressions of the film, plus tips regarding exposure and development.

Exposure

Without a filter, or with just a #25 red filter, setting the ISO to 400 and metering through the lens worked fine. As with most ISO 400 films, though, I prefer the results at ISO 320 or even 200.

As you’d expect, there is no IR effect when shooting without a filter. And, unlike some other IR films, there is very little IR effect when shooting with a #25 red filter. To get a pronounced IR effect I had to use a Hoya R72 infrared filter.

My first experiments with the IR filter were disappointing. I utilized a 5 stop filter factor, so I metered at ISO 400 with no filter and then increased the exposure by 5 stops – effectively shooting at ISO 12. I bracket up and down a stop, for ISO 24 and 6. Unfortunately, with the R72 filter in place, this still resulted in a grossly underexposed negative.

So the second time around I ramped up the filter factor to 7 - 10 stops – shooting at ISO 3, 1.0, and even 0.5. The shot above was metered at ISO 1.0 and was taken with the R72 filter in place. In bright midday full sun, with the lens at f16, this was a 1 second exposure – pretty darn long and comparale to the digital IR work I’ve been doing. (Just to be perfectly clear for folks trying to wrap their heads around adjusting exposure to compensate for filters – I metered the above shot with the camera set to ISO 400. That gave me a recommended setting of 1/500th of a second. I then clicked the shutter button to increase the exposure by 9 stops to 1 second even.)

The R72 filter was critical for getting the distinct IR effect. The image below compares two shots, one taken at ISO 200 with a #25 Red Filter, and the other with the R72. While Kodak HIE, Ilford SFX, and even the now long defunct Konica IR750 all produced good results with the plain red filter, with the Rollei film the red filter just doesn’t cut it. The technical specifications sheet recommends a deep red filter, but I have not tried that.

Development

Having only shot two rolls of this filme, I processed the first in Rodinal 1:50 and the second in HC110 Dil H (1:66). The roll dipped in Rodinal was grainy – very grainy. The HC110 roll had much more subdued grain, and much better tonal range (of course, that is also a result of the second roll being better exposed.) The successful process with HC110 was 20 minutes and 20C, with agitation one per minute for the first 15 minutes, and every 30 seconds for the last 5 minutes. For the next roll I’ll probably drop the agitation for the first few minutes, and extend the time, in hopes of coaxing out a bit more shadow detail.

Rollei IR400 is the first 35mm film I’ve used that has a water soluble anti-halation / dye layer. While this is generally the rule for 120 and 220 films, I wasn’t expecting it in a 35mm format. As recommended on the Massive Development Chart, I pre-soaked the film for 5 minutes before developing .

In conclusion, I’m really happy with the rest results from this film, and am looking forward to doing more work with it.

Spring is hiding this April – lurking in the melting mounds of snow that shrink at the edges of parking ramps, under the brown grasses and leafless trees, in the cold rain that falls more often than not. Now wildflowers are blooming – yet. Few insects take to the air. A few green buds hint at what is coming.

Late last week, though, the sun shone brightly and temperatures rose enough to melt most of the remaining snow – except in the shaded places. I went to the Allegan Forest to see if I could coax out some glimmer of the hidden season with an infrared photography session. What better way to search for something hidden, than to look with invisible light? Or so goes my logic, or whatever.

Al least the melting snow let me get at areas that have been difficult to reach these last few months. First off was a visit to the vernal pond – more like a vernal marsh – off 48th street. Beginning in a few weeks and then for the rest of the summer this place will be full of all sorts of dragonflies. This is the time of year when the marsh is the most flooded – this shot below shows (in graphic infrared hues) the flooded out and trampled down grasses that will rise up 4 or 5 feet out of the marsh by late spring. By July or August I’ll be walking through the area shown here – the marsh will shrink down to just a small wet area (the heart of the marsh) by the end of the summer.

But surely dragonfly larva slink through the icy waters, even now, dreaming of the days when they will take to the air…

I also visited some areas north of the river – along the bluffs rising above the flooded flood plains below. In particular I explored a steep embankment off 125th street – which is a rutted two track at that point. The steep slope faces due south, and the first hepatica leaves, and even a few flower buds, were poking out of the dried leaves. The micro climate at this place makes it green up earlier than anywhere else that I visit, so in a week – maybe two – the hepatica should be abundant elsewhere.

Here’s another infrared shot from the same area – this one of a pine tree, somewhat close up, though not a close-up. Not much to say, but I like it.

All of these photos were taken with the Pentax *ist-D and an RM90 IR filter.

I also experimented with Rollie IR400 during this trip, shooting alternatively with an R72 IR filter, and a standard #25 red filter. The first time out with this film was not so successful – none of the shots with the R72 filter came out well, and the shots with the standard red fitler show little IR effect (though as a standard B&W film it looked fine.) The shots with the R72 filter were metered at ISO 25, and were bracketed one stop plus and minus. In hindsight, I realize that I should have metered at ISO 12 or even 6 – so I’ll be back to try again. I also underdeveloped the film – which did not help things.

Well – let’s hope I got all the mistakes out of the way on this first try. With 4 more rolls in the fridge, I’m eager to give this film another try.

I’m a big fan of infrared photography, and increasingly that means shooting digital IR. My personal setup has been based around a Pentax *ist-D 6 megapixel DSLR and a Hoya RM 90 filter. This has produced some pretty nice results, but it has some drawbacks. The RM90 blocks all visible light, and even infrared light up to 900 nanometers. As a result, exposure times on the *ist-D are fairly long. I also find a fair amount of “sensor flare” – light reflections within the digital sensor itself – when using the RM90.

Since just about everyone else who shoots digital IR uses a Hoya R72 filter, today I decided to pick one up and try it out. The R72 blocks visible light, but allows light transmission from about 700nm on. So I made a quick stop to the local camera store, which actually had them in stock, and then headed out to the Allegan Forest to run some tests.

Mother Nature did not entirely cooperate. Although the forecast was for clear skies and sunshine, by mid morning the sun was shining through high overcast clouds, and the only blue sky to be seen was in the southern half of the sky, which meant shooting into the sun to some degree.

Although I took several shots, I picked the one I liked the best and tried to make the best images I could from both the RM90 version and the R72 version. The photo of the Walnut Tree is the one I picked to work on. At the start of this post is the best shot I could make using the RM90 exposure. At the end is the best shot I could make using the R72 exposure. Granted – this test is a bit skewed. I’ve been shooting with the RM90 for a few years now, and have a lot more experience with it than with the R72 (used for the first time today.)

I’ve also enclosed the two RAW files, straight off the camera with no adjustment. These pretty clearly show the difference in color, white balance, and contrast between the two filters. If you look closely at the shot taken with the RM90, you can see some sensor flare in the form of a brighter cyan band running horizontal about 20% above the bottom of the frame. (Minor flare like this can be handled by using the sponge tool in Photoshop to de-saturate the flared area and blend it back into the rest of the image.)

Nonetheless, I shot several dozen images with the two filters, attempting side by side comparisons. Here’s a rundown of what I found out:

1. Speed – the R72 was consistently about 3 stops faster than the RM90. Throughout the morning I was shooting at f11. With the RM90 in place exposures were 2 to 3 seconds at ISO 1600. With the R72 exposures were 1/4th to 1/3rd of a second at the same ISO. In either case – a tripod was a necessity.

2. White Balance – When shooting RAW files, white balance can always be adjusted later. But it’s great to get it close to the mark during the actual shooting process. For a long time I just shot with the RM90 using either daylight or auto white balance settings. This resulted in a low contrast magenta image that could easily be adjusted in Adobe Camera RAW or in Photoshop itself.

These days, with the RM90 I just take a custom white balance reading, with the filter on the camera, off a white card. This results in blue skies that are deep burgundy to black, white clouds, and somewhat cyan colored foliage.

The R72 proved to be more of a challenge on this front. When the white balance was set to auto or to daylight, the camera produced a blood red image, with almost no discernable detail in it. (The detail could of course be teased out in the RAW conversion process, but with these white balance settings it was virtually impossible to access the composition on the preview screen.) I had heard that setting the white balance off foliage was one approach that worked with the R72, so I tried that out and set a custom white balance off green foliage with the filter in place. That resulted in a much better image – although it was still tinted orange

3. Sensor flare – sensor flare seems to be tied to the length of the exposure, and with the much shorted exposures from the R72, it was greatly reduced when using this filter.
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At the end of the day, I can only say that the two filters simply represent two different sets of tradeoffs. The long exposures resulting from the RM90 can result in too much motion blur. The shorter exposures of the R72 help to address that – but I can’t see hand holding the *ist-D with either filter in place. Color balance is probably just a matter of taste - I can see liking the RM90 in some situations, and the R72 in others. It looks like the R72 will result in a lot fewer shots lost to sensor flare.

At any rate – I’m pretty sure that an IR converted camera is in my future, probably the near future to boot.

Where do the dragons go when they don’t want to be seen?

Beats me, or else I would have seen some recently…

West Michigan’s unusual dry spell finally broke this last week. I visited the Allegan Forest on Sunday and again on Tuesday, both days after heavy local rains. It’s amazing how quickly the plants in the sandy soil of the pine barrens quickly turn from brown to green. The marsh I’ve been visiting off 48th street has progressed from dried, cracked mud, to muddy mud, to gooey muddy mud. Good sign for all the moisture loving creatures there.

But on both days, no dragonflies were to be found. A few spicebush and red spotted purple butterflies flitted about. So far this year, I’ve seen no Karner Blues, and it’s it’s likely I won’t see any this summer at all.

So I set my sights on landscape photography. In particular, I did some more digital infrared work using the *ist-d and Hoya RM90 filter. It seems that some of the best results are to be had on high overcast days. The few cool and dry, crystal clear days when I shot digital IR seemed to result in an undue amount of sensor flare and other problems.

The first image shown here was shot laast week, using the Pentax *ist-D and an IR filter. It is from the old farmstead off 48th street.

The second image was shot last August from a similar vantage point as this shot, which was taken using Maco 120 format IR film in the trusty Pentax 6x7. Perosnally, I like the digital IR effect better – and while the digital shot required a fairly long exposure, it was not much longer than that required by the rather slow B&W film.

I also experimented with more ‘time and motion studies.’ These are 25 – 100 multiple exposure shots, building up a composite of light on the negative that bears no resemblance to the actual subjects shot. I realized that the Pentax Mz-S, with its capacity for unlimited multiple exposures, was the perfect tool for this technique. No results to show, but the studies continue.

My next opportunity to visit the forest is three weeks out. That’s disappointing, since a lot can happen in three weeks. But I’ve managed to carve out a few hours this Friday to visit the McLInden Trails, so with luck, a dragon or two might appear here in the near future.

As always, larger images and the full days shoot can be found in the image stream.

I have to admit it – I’m starting to get tired of shooting dragonflies. It seemed like this day would never come, but suddenly I’m feeling sated and looking for new stuff to do.

So… On to some new experiments with digital infrared…

Color digital IR has always impressed me, ever since I first encountered it in posts Marty Getz made on PhotoBlink, back in the day when I participated there. (By the way – Marty’s “Aliens Above” series is a must visit page for Digital IR fans…)

A few days ago David Brooks on the PDML posted this link to a discussion about digital IR. So far, with my digital IR work, I’ve just de-saturated the image and then worked with it as a mono shot. That usually means toning the image in Photoshop using the duotone or tritone tools. But the discussions about workflow got me thinking about working with color, so tried out a few of the ideas presented.

First, I tried taking a custom white balance off some green vegetation. This, of course, would turn green tones white since I’m calibrating the camera to do just that. I set the custom white balance without the IR filter (Hoya RM90) and proceeded to shoot, using the Pentax *ist-D (the K10D is just too good at filtering out IR.)

This was a good start, and eliminated the lavender monochrome that all digital IR shots come out in when white balance is set to daylight or auto. But I didn’t see the logic behind setting the white balance to green. Instead, I just set the white balance using a white (well – my light grey shirt) light source _with_ the IR filter in place.

Voila – suddenly I was seeing the subtle shades of color in the digital images!

I wondered why I hadn’t thought about adjusting the white balance before this – but the answer is obvious. Since I was shooting RAW, I assumed white balance was irrelevant. Afterall, I could select what ever white balance I wanted to, right?

And that is exactly the case. The only thing is, all the standard white balances expressed the IR shots as different shade of monotone. I never delved into really customizing the WB to get some more interesting effects. And all it really takes is just a tap of the eyedropper in Adobe Camera Raw on the white highlights of a cloud or something like that.

Well – now I know. And in the future I can go back an possibly re-work some of my older IR shots – though I may come to find that the simplicity of B&W is what serves these images best.

But – at least there’s another trick in the bag of tricks!

As always - full sized images can be found in the Image Stream, or by clicking on the images here.

Pam and I have been on the road these last couple of days, working our way down to the northwest corner of North Carolina, for the Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography workshop. I’ll be presenting on field techniques for macro photography, and am looking forward to meeting in person some of the folks from the Pentax Discussions Mail List.

I was in North Carolina last year, really just by happenstance. Then I stomped around in the DuPont forest, shot a lot of waterfalls, and also explored the Blue Ridge Parkway. The scenery is a far cry from the Midwestern woods I usually shoot, but it’s something to awaken my slack and sleeping senses.

After a few nights in Knoxville we made it to Grandfather Mountain today – a much longer drive than I anticipated. Aside from some a few minor puzzlers presented by the MapQuest directions (“Does 19E North really run due South?”) things went smoothly. After checking into our lodgings – the Smoke Tree Lodge, a most excellent accommodation – we found the mountain without event.

There we had a chance to make some acquaintances and learn about the planned events for the next couple of days. After that it was up to the top of the mountain, and I promptly picked up shooting where I left off last year – digital infrared landscapes of the smokey mountains.

Well, there really was no choice choice - the haze coving the mountains and the filtered but direct June sun, just screamed for the IR treatment.

That of course meant shooting with the *ist-D (as noted in earlier posts – the K10D IR filters really do block most of the IR light.) The great advantage this year was having a true wide angle lens (I used the DA 18-55, since my Hoya RM 90 IR filter is too small for the DA 16-45.) Having a tripod was also real handy – no more resting the camera on a crumpled hat on fence or sign post, like last year.

I only shot 25 exposures – really just a handful of framed up shots (it pays to bracket with those digital IR shots). Then we left the mountain, took a wrong turn, and found ourselves back at the Smoketree some time later.

Fiddling with the images in Photoshop on the laptop has been interesting. Aspirin popping interesting, and ultimately I’m not sure what the heck they look like – this monitor makes me marvel at the heretofore unseen details of some of my older shots, and cringing and some of the newer shots that seem way out of synch.

Well, calibration will be a home project. Don’t know if there will be any other updates from the road, but certainly something once I’m back home.

The sun is finally shining here in west Michigan - something that is pretty rare in the winter months. And yesterday the bight sun was an invitation to test out the infrared capabilities of the Pentax K10D.

I’m a big fan on infrared photography, both in film and digital form. But with dwindling options for infrared film, I’ve been increasingly shooting digital infrared using a Hoya RM90 filter. (For specifics, click here for my digital IR tutorial.) So with the arrival of the Pentax K10D, I've been eager to see how it will perform with the IR filter.

The blood red images on the LCD were pretty cool, but aside from that first impression the camera does not seem to be a good candidate for digital IR.

Here's a summary of my impressions:

- The K10D has much better IR blocking than the *ist-D. Using the *ist-D my normal exposure with the RM90 filter was 4-15 seconds at f 16. With the K10D it took more like 20-30 seconds at f8 or f5.6. ISO 1600 was used in both cases.

- Sensor flare is a much bigger issue with the K10D than the *ist-D. About half the shots I tried were ruined by sensor flare.

- The snowy landscape without any foliage was not a good test of IR capabilities. But my initial impressions are that the IR effect is pretty weak. Where are the black skies and plaster white trees? Maybe things will be different in the summer.

For the time being, it looks like I'll be sticking with the *ist-D for digital infrared work, and maybe ultimately moving up to a modified / dedicated IR DSLR. (which will probably mean opting for a Canon or Nikon of some sort