It arrived this week: my 720nm IR converted body.
Today, I was finally able to take it out and play with it. It was a short walk at Green Lakes, but it was still fun to look and see what things look like off the sensor.
I don’t find false colors appealing, so plan on shooting and editing in monochrome. Now I just need to experiment for a while to see what I like the images to look like after post-processing. I know I like the glow of IR images from film and will definitely utilize the Orton Effect to give my images that look. I just don’t know about contrast.
Part of me wants to use all of the histogram from blacks to whites:
While another part of me likes the lower contrast with the Orton/Glow and the more ethereal (to me) feel of the image:
Either way, I have something new to go out with and use to capture images.
Did I need it? No, I did not, and there are certainly circumstances when I could obtain very similar results with photoshop techniques. But there are some things that just can’t be replicated. The stark contrast between branches and their leaves is really, really tough to get as easily and the ability to cut through haze when shooting with a long lens is really, really neat.
So for $240, I think I’ll get my money’s worth. Time will tell, of course. I wouldn’t have spent much more than that; but it seems that this will give me a reason to get out in the summer months, when I would usually be staying indoors waiting for better light. This camera changes what “good light” means to the person holding the camera.