Choosing a Camera

Which camera best suits my needs?

You first have to decide what are your requirements. To do that make a short list of the main primairy goals like: i want to use my camera for daytime normal photography or strictly for the purpose of IR and do you want to stay flexible in which IR you want to image etc. The second main descission you have to make is do i want to have a SLR or system camera. System camera’s can be used in combination with a full spectrum sensor which gives you much flexibilty. A stated earlier a SLR camera in full spectrum in combination with lens filter blocks the use of the eyepiece viewer (human eye does not record IR, the image sensor of the camera does). Dutch Digital Works will be happy to advise you on which camera best suits your needs.

The DSLR

DSLRs enables you to shoot very good IR images and even old camera’s can be used for this purpose.

The Pros:

DSLRs give you high flexibilty in use. they offer a wide range of options from the menu’s en great fexibility in which lens you use.

The Cons:

Image quality overall is better, but you need to have an build-in IR filter to enable you to look through the eyepiece viewer to actually see what you are recording. This build-in filter will also maximise the risk of trapping dust between filter and sensor, which in turn you can not remove yourself.  Different companies offer IR sensor filters for your camera but this ends up in 70-80% of the cases in some dust spots in your images. Best way to use the SLR camera with IR and still maintain flexibity and dust is full spectrum in combination with the liveview function and lens filters. Big advantage is that you will still be able to use your camera daytime photography.

The Mirrorless Camera

Mirrorless cameras like Sony A series or the Panasonic camera are very good camera’s for the infrared photography. They come in full format 4/3 or other sizes and offer wide range of lenses.

The Pros:

System SLR’s enable you to use the sensor in full spectrum mode and with the use of lens filters take pictures in incredible details. During conversion no other filter is placed in front of the sensor and the risk of dust trapped between sensor and filter is prevented.

The Cons:

The flexibility that you have with lens choices is most of the time limited.

Summary

Infrared camera conversion

Choosing a Filter

Which filter?

IR 590nm Gives you high flexibilty. Images are still color rich.

IR 665nm produces more vibrant colors than the 720nm for pale yellow leaves and brighter blue skies.

IR 720nm Most used in the IR field. restricts the visible enough to get the beautifull snow like effect but still contains enough color information to play with.

IR 850nm Produces Black and white images in IR. The camera produces bright whites and pronounced darks.

IR 920nm like the 850nm but even more extreme.

clear glass makes the camera sensitive to UV, visible, and IR light, allowing switching between various external filters to achieve the desired effect, this allows going between infrared and regular shooting.

DAW Conversion IR sensitive but also enables you to do daytime photography. Blocks UV spectrum (Below 400nm)

Focus Calibration

Removing filters requires focus calibration

For the IR conversion, filters need to be removed in front of the sensor. Removing these filters will impact the lightpath. Every glass has it’s infuence on the lightpath in what is called breaking index. In most camera’s there are two filters in front of the sensor. Dependent on the type of modification these two filters are replaced by 1 filter. This will require recalibration of the camera’s optical path.

Problem with IR

Common problems with infrared and how to avoid them

Hotspot

A number of the commercial available lenses have what is called “hotspot” in the central part of the optical path. Those artifacts can be removed from your picture with a good software package. But better is to prevent them. from the database above you can determine if you lens is prone to these artifacts.

Sensor Cleaning

Build in sensor clean function.

When converting a camera for whatever reason, the build in sensor clean function is disabled picture. For this purpose Dutch Digital Works has developed a filter that preserves the sensor clean function, the so called DAW conversion which only applies to the full spectrum conversion. For infrared conversions this will not work. In these cases the build in sensor clean function is lost.