Infrared Photos

How was this done? Through trial and error mostly! I bought an infrared filter (cutoff 760 nanometers if you just have to know) and jumped right in.

Some background: the big SLR camera makers like Nikon and Canon deliberately filtered most infrared light from ever hitting the sensor. Can’t blame them for wanting to improve their capture of the visible spectrum. I had two options—first, for a fee the camera can be modified to let IR light through, but that turns the camera permanently into an infrared-only camera. Since I didn’t have the extra money to do this, I went for an unmodified option.

Shooting infrared photos with an unmodified digital SLR requires long exposures, from half a minute to three or four minutes, in my case. I have been finally forced to bring a good tripod along! You can see the length of the exposures in the movement of the clouds, for instance, and in the fact that I chose cacti, juniper and the more rigid plants as subjects. A little breeze will mean a blur somewhere.