Stud Horse Point Infrared Photography – Page Arizona
Infrared imaging can add interest to a scene that otherwise would be OK but rather mundane. I have a Lumix G6 that I had converted to IR by LifePixel. It’s great to take an older camera that isn’t getting much use and have it converted to Infrared. Or if you don’t have an older candidate that will work you can but up a used camera and have it repurposed.
But why is it good Bob?
Some times of day are just not conducive to solid imagery. Usually, midday is less than ideal for making photos and that is when IR photography can shine especially when there are clouds and or trees in the scene. Here was an example where I wasn’t thrilled witht the lighting. We were hoping for great color in the sunset. You know how that goes. All looks good then falls flat. Rather than come home empty handed I kinda like the outcome of these.
Outside Page, Arizona – Stud Horse Point
Hoodoos at Stud Horse Point
When capturing IR photos I tend to shoot in RAW + jpeg with the camera set to black and white. The black and white allows me to get a better sense of how the scene will render as the RAW image will come in with a magenta cast. I also bracket exposures as the camera’s meter and histogram are still ‘thinking’ in full spectrum color mode.
I picked the RAW images I wanted to process. Then output them to Photoshop and added some dodging and burning. Then took the image to NIK ColorFX Pro 4 to add some Glamour Glow and a little grain to emulate the look of film IR. As a final step, I evened out the overall color and added a light sepia tone over the image using a Hue/Saturation action.
My wife says the great blue herons all run for the hills when they see our car pull up as I have been stalking them on this property for years. I love those big birds.
Was visiting my mother-in-law this past week with my wife on our annual visit the family trip. It’s a great time to work on my wildlife skills. I thought I’d try pairing the Lumix GX8 with the 100-300mm Lumix Vario G f4.0-5.6 lens and boy I was happy. The GX8 has a fast capture rate which was great for sequences. I enjoy capturing birds with different behavior rather than just beauty portraits. As my MIL’s home is on the point with surrounding marsh there’s lots of wildlife on display for my camera.
The birds that gave me the most opportunity to study during this trip were snowy egrets. Most of the time it was raining and blustery winds coming from the northeast.
I enjoy how this egret appears to be dancing in this image. ISO 800 1/3200 sec. +1 exposure compensation Aperture Proiity f5.6 300mm (600mm 35mm equivalent)
This combination of lens, ISO and camera lend itself to a slightly grainy (aka noise) look. Because this is a small piece of the overall image I’ve pushed it here to emulate tri-x push process. The processors have given the noise in an image more of a film grain feel. ISO 800 1/1600 sec. Aperture Priority f5.6 300mm (600mm 35mm equivalent) Processed in NIK Silver FX Pro 2 (which you can now download fro free if you hadn’t heard the news!)
Geese are another ever-present bird on the marsh. ISO 800 1/3200 sec. +1 exposure compensation Aperture Priority f5.6 246mm (492mm 35mm equivalent)
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – You’ll notice that there are no great blue herons among my captures. That has nothing to do with me but a hawk family moved into the neighborhood and chased all the nesting herons from the area a couple weeks before my arrival.
I do! I always try to improve my skills by pushing out of my comfort zone and create different images from different places.
I always try to improve my skills by pushing out of my comfort zone and create different images from different places.
So how do you do it? One of the best ways is to continually practice and expand your skillset. Anyone who is at the top of their game in any sport, yes I consider photography a sport as well as an art form, practice daily. Why do I consider it a sport? Depending on your photographic genre you need coordination, timing, and stamina. This goes for shooting sports, weddings, wildlife or other fast moving situations. Why art? Art because you need to create or recognize wonderful lighting in order to have your images rise above the ordinary. Both the ‘art and sport’ parts of your work can be improved by working on your muscle memory. And, you guessed it, that takes practice.
Guess what? Your composition gets better when you practice too.
You also need to practice your post production as well… And the more you do it, well you get the idea.
I always try to improve my skills by putting myself in different situations and today I’ll share some images from the Phoenix zoo. For a little accompaniment push the button to listen to Paul Simon’s song ‘At the Zoo’.
Paul Simon with Garfunkle “At the Zoo’ from around 1967. (am I showing my age here??)
Orangatang at Phoenix Zoo. Captured with Lumix FZ1000 1/40th sec f4 ISO 200 – With a range of 25-400mm the FZ1000 is a very handy lens covering a wide variety of situations.
“OK Bob, so how is this zoo practice good for practicing other types of photography?
I’m fighting crowds to get the angle I want. Looking to capture expression which happens very quickly. In this instance, I am also going to be working hard in my post processing because this image was made in less than ideal lighting conditions through a thick, colored, and dirty pane of glass.
Did I say it wasn’t an ideal situation? That never happens on a regular photo shoot… (cue the laughter bouncing off the walls!)
Here is the final image I was able to pull from the original capture.
A couple of post processing tips I picked up from working on this photo of the orangutan. Adobe Camera RAW has a feature called DeHaze. This was quite helpful in getting a lot of the reflections and dirt on the glass to disappear. Did a much better job than I thought it would!It was designed to help with scenics to take some of the blue out of a landscape image but it worked very much like a Polarizing filter in this situation. I will be revisiting this filter more in the future. I love how tools and setting designed for one thing can be leveraged to do more.
After the initial processing in Photoshop I moved over to my favorite black and white conversion tool NIK Silver FX Pro 2. I made my black and white selections in the filter. These process out onto their own layer, and with a Mask, additional adjustments can be made. One more time back into Silver FX Pro 2 (it’s free now!) and I made some adjustments to the Structure, dialing in very strong enhancements to the mid tones and the fine structure. I changed the Mode of that new layer to Luminosity and filled the mask with black. Then I was able to paint with white on the mask to selectively sharpen specific areas of the image.
Last on the list was a Soft Light Mode Layer to dodge and burn.
It’s pretty amazing how far the new HDR software from Macphun called AuroraHDR has come. Layers are now available within. An interface that’s pretty straightforward but with lots of control available in many different areas of manipulation.
One of the things I find I really like is the ability to get the most out of the dynamic range in the scene… and still have a very realistic image rather than one that screams HDR!!!!! And, even better presets that will get you close to the final look you want.
I pulled a set of three images from Butchart Gardens in Victoria British Columbia near Vancouver, Canada and thought I’d see how the software worked with these older files from the Leica D-Lux 4 point and shoot camera.
Natural preset.
A bit more ‘tooth’ in this preset. I like what it did to the greenery but not so much the sky. Could be combined with the image above or processed with layers in Aurora to clean up sky area.
Black and white preset… Not bad. No extra processing.
You can be as subtle or as outrageous in your processing as you would like. Shooting multiple images to expand your density range? Try out the program. I think you’ll like it.
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
PS – Get some extra goodies if you buy before February is over 99 bucks for the program and 90 bucks in bonuses. And always a 30 day money back guarantee… Click on the banner for more info.
As you can probably tell by my lack of posting the last few days it has been extremely busy in bob’s world. Had a full two day shoot for the Sky Ranch Lodge after their remodel. I’ll share some photos with you as soon as the processing is done along with some of the techniques I used to get the images.
In the meantime, I did have a chance to process another image from my infrared photography. I really enjoy black and white images and the infrared adds another whole new dimension to it. I converted my Lumix G6 through LifePixel with a 750 NM (standard) IR filter. This gives you images that are on the pink side and of course need some processing to get them into final shape of Infrared BW images. As I practice and process more I am able to get a better range of tones throughout the photo.
Captured in the Village of Oak Creek, Sedona, AZ. Courthouse Butte is the main rock formation.
Here’s the IR image Straight out of Camera Note the pink cast. Finding I need to underexpose a bit in order to not loose highlights even though the histogram indicates it is with the scope. You have to remember that the histogram is letting you know about visible light not necessarily infrared exposure.
One of the really great things about having a dedicated IR camera is the ability to set recording for RAW + jpeg and have both images to work from in post production. If you shoot only in RAW you don’t get the processing from the camera. I set the camera to capture BW images so I can get a ballpark preview of the scene as I work.
You don’t need to convert a camera to IR you can always go ‘old school’ with a Wratten IR filter in front of your lens. The problem with doing that is your exposure time will be lengthy and focus can be a bit of a pain as IR light rays and visible light focus at a different depth on the sensor so additional calculations need to be made. (although the extended time might be cool for capturing cloud movement!) Might have to pick up an IR filter myself too…
Best part is infrared photography really opens up the mid-day time slot for creatively capturing images as it is usually too much contrast for regular photography.
OK. I went back to the same file I worked on yesterday and reprocessed using a couple different techniques. Here is the new version captured with the Lumix G6 and the 7-14mm f4 lens.
Different processing led to a cleaner more detailed IR image.
First I used Adobe Camera RAW to process the file twice. Once for the foreground which was in shadow and again for the background which was in full sun. Using a Layer Mask I blended the two files together. Then using the Channel Mixer I swapped the Red and Blue Channel information as this file is still comprised of RGB information. When you first open the Channel Mixer adjustment Layer you’ll see the Output Channel set to Red at 100%. Change this to 0%. Go to the Blue color and change it to 100%. Then change the Output Channel to Blue and make the Red color 100% and the Blue color 0%. This is to give a ‘blue sky effect’. I didn’t like that effect so I kept going.
Swapping the Channels gave me a better image ultimately so I will keep this as part of my IR processing in the future.
Next using NIK Silver FX Pro 2 I converted to Black and White adding some mid-tone structure and fine structure. in NIK Color FX Pro 4 I added a bit of Glamour Glow with neutral color. This helped increase the IR look. A little goes a long way before you blow out some highlights so be careful here. Final bit of tweaking is a blank Layer set to Soft Light Mode using the Brush Tool with Black or White color to dodge and burn the image just a bit to control where the eye travels throughout the photograph.
Looking forward to working in IR more often. Gives a great look to noon-day sun images when you would normally refrain from making image captures.
For infrared conversion of my cameras I use LifePixel. Infrared allows you to put an older camera to use and opens up a new time time of day for productive image creation.
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Hoodoos at Stud Horse Point
