The Fall Blooms of Cosmos

[AlanLichty]

Up until this year the last flower to bloom in our garden was the Monk's Hood but we ripped those out this last spring and replaced them with a new plant called Cosmos that is now giving us late season flowers. Since I had a new way to process IR images I decided to shoot one of the blooms with my Canon R5 MkII as well as with my 590nm IR converted Canon 5D MkII.

Pulling out the IR camera turned out to be a bit of a relearning curve since I hadn't used it for 3 or 4 years now. I completely forgot that autofocus goes out the window and the DSLR viewfinder is pretty much useless. The shot below was hand held but I will be yanking out my tripod for IR shooting going forward. Manually focusing Live View isn't the best solution for sharp imaging. I got past that part and then discovered that I had buried my old card readers for CompactFlash cards. I dug one of those older readers out and also had to find a USB-A cable with the MiniUSB on the other end. I haven't been carrying either the card reader or the cable with me on road trips for several years now.

I did not have both cameras with me out in the yard at the same time so the viewing angle isn't identical but this is the same bloom. Additionally the R5MkII shot was with a RF100-500mm lens while the IR shot was with an EF24-105mm lens.

IR:

Visible light:

C&C always welcome.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Interesting comparison. The IR version shows more detail. I like them both.

 

[AlanLichty]

Interesting comparison. The IR version shows more detail. I like them both.

Thanks Jameel - I need to drag that camera out more often to get back up to speed on using it. When I first had the camera body converted I was using a tripod for just about every photo I took but I haven't even been carrying the tripod for the past year or so with a mirrorless camera body.

 

[JimFox]

Love the comparison, and very nice work with the IR in #1.


I dont' have any issue with the AutoFocus in the viewfinder on my Nikon D7100 when focusing. If it's sharp in the viewfinder it's sharp in the image.

They autofocus does get changed and needs to be recalibrated. I wonder if you could focus it with the LiveView and then adjust the adopter in the ViewFinder to then be in focus to match the LiveView?

Also, my exposures are the same as they were without the IR conversion. When I was experimenting with the 720nm filter on the camera, I had to use a tripod since that filter is as thick as a 10 stop ND, so all of the exposures were 5 to 10 secs long. But when I had it converted, it exposes just like a normal camera would or so close to it that I don't notice.

What aperture are you setting the lens to?

 

[AlanLichty]

Love the comparison, and very nice work with the IR in #1.


I dont' have any issue with the AutoFocus in the viewfinder on my Nikon D7100 when focusing. If it's sharp in the viewfinder it's sharp in the image.

They autofocus does get changed and needs to be recalibrated. I wonder if you could focus it with the LiveView and then adjust the adopter in the ViewFinder to then be in focus to match the LiveView?

Also, my exposures are the same as they were without the IR conversion. When I was experimenting with the 720nm filter on the camera, I had to use a tripod since that filter is as thick as a 10 stop ND, so all of the exposures were 5 to 10 secs long. But when I had it converted, it exposes just like a normal camera would or so close to it that I don't notice.

What aperture are you setting the lens to?

Thanks Jim - I need to go back out with that camera today on a tripod so I can take more time setting it up and look through the settings. I hadn't used that camera in years and casually pulling it out for a handheld shot wasn't the best plan.

 

[Michael13]

Pulling out the IR camera turned out to be a bit of a relearning curve since I hadn't used it for 3 or 4 years now. I completely forgot that autofocus goes out the window and the DSLR viewfinder is pretty much useless. The shot below was hand held but I will be yanking out my tripod for IR shooting going forward. Manually focusing Live View isn't the best solution for sharp imaging. I got past that part and then discovered that I had buried my old card readers for CompactFlash cards. I dug one of those older readers out and also had to find a USB-A cable with the MiniUSB on the other end. I haven't been carrying either the card reader or the cable with me on road trips for several years now.

Yeah, with a DSLR best bet is to have whoever does the conversion to calibrate focus to one lens. Second best way is to use manual lenses with IR focus index on the lens barrel. Third best way is use live view, but without a fully articulating screen, this can be a problem, especially shooting in bright light, where IR performs best. I used to use a DSLR monitor hood on my old APS-C IR bodies, it helped, but was also awkward to use.

Of course, you can fix everything by getting a mirrorless body converted!

 

[AlanLichty]

Yeah, with a DSLR best bet is to have whoever does the conversion to calibrate focus to one lens. Second best way is to use manual lenses with IR focus index on the lens barrel. Third best way is use live view, but without a fully articulating screen, this can be a problem, especially shooting in bright light, where IR performs best. I used to use a DSLR monitor hood on my old APS-C IR bodies, it helped, but was also awkward to use.

Of course, you can fix everything by getting a mirrorless body converted!

Thanks Michael - and thanks for the Rob Shea link. That woke up my interest in shooting IR again.

I spent some time today with the camera I had converted about 5 years ago and found a bunch of settings that were at odds with how I want to use the camera these days. I reset those to more closely match my current shooting preferences and found that 1) autofocus does work on the converted camera body but not with the settings I wandered out to shoot with for the IR image shown above; 2) with the settings reconfigured I can shoot handheld shots just fine with workable exposure and autofocus. Those caveats aside I most certainly need to be using a tripod with a 720nm filter threaded on my lens. The viewfinder with that filter is like trying to look through welder's glass and Live View is mandatory.

When I last used this camera I was shooting everything on a tripod and always did use manual focus with the Canon 5D MkII. Autofocus has improved to the extent that I use it almost exclusively anymore and this older camera body wasn't configured for that at all.