Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Phoenix, AZ | IR Converted K-x Minireview/discussion
Late in 2010, thanks to a small influx of cash I decided to finally take the plunge and dive into "real" photography. After an obscene amount of research I bought a new K-x, happily ditching the more popular and available Canikon flavors that most would pick. It was, I'm pretty sure, the only K-x available for sale in Phoenix, and I bought the last one. I loved it, it was almost the perfect camera, super small, and very good for the price. I quickly replaced it with a K-5 when they hit a good low price, though, and since then the poor K-x has been sitting in my closet, unused and unloved. My girlfriend was going to use it, but she just wants a point and shoot, and monopolizes my Olympus EP-3. I've tried selling it on Craigslist, without much success (or rather, any success, obviously).
I've had my sights on trying infrared photography for awhile, I bought filters, I bought various step-up/down rings, etc... I took some passable photos, but never really got into it, since it is a pain to shoot on a normal digital camera. The huge exposure times, and resulting sensor/iso noise made it hard to really work with the resulting images. Shooting blind with a DSLR was a bit of a pain. Using an EVF on my M43 camera was a bit better, but the EP-3 has some of the ugliest high ISO and sensor noise I've ever seen.
Long story short, I finally took the plunge and sent my neglected K-x out to be converted with a 720nm filter. I reviewed the options, and heavily relied on old threads here for my choice. I skipped the big ones, since one of them (LifePixel) didn't list Pentax on their accepted brands, and the other (Spencers) has some remarkable horror stories here. I talked to one guy, who was recommended on the forums, and he told me "most people convert K-01's", which I would do, if he was willing to buy me a K-01 to convert. I have what I have, and must work with that. I settled on Kolari Vision, which at least didn't have any negative reviews.
Dealing with them was a bit odd. Very impersonal. Use Paypal to send $250, send your camera wait, then get it back; no personal interaction with them at all. I even left a note on my invoice asking for some updates, since I was planning on going out of town in the same time frame. Nothing. This isn't a tick against them really, but it would have been nice to actually know people were working on my camera, and I wasn't just sending it into an emotionless black box... Regardless, the camera came back in two weeks, the only thing in the box (besides the camera) was a small brochure with some information on the use, and a free(!) grey card. Ahem. USPS mangled the box pretty well, it was almost triangular when I grabbed it from the mail box, it was so bad I documented it before opening it, not that it would have mattered since Kolari Vision only stuck $50 of insurance on the box. Luckily everything was fine, nothing was broken. None of this matters, I suppose, the only thing that does is how well does it work?
It works fine. At first I thought there was dust stuck between the sensor and filter, but it was just surface dust. A quick tour with a blower cleared it up. All functions work fine, SR works, sensor cleaning works, etc... These are the things that were most likely to go wrong, according to my research. No issues with focus. I sent along an old 18-55 kit lens for calibration, hoping, perhaps naively, that I'd be "more" calibrated than their normal routine (calibrated to 50mm, or whatever you send along with the camera). I don't know if this made a difference, I doubt it. I sent it because it is the lens I don't care about losing, I almost sent my 35mm 2.4 since it is my least favorite (uh oh!), but didn't because I probably still won't use that lens and 35mm isn't a length I ever really use.
I can't complain about their workmanship, at all. I would recommend them to anyone looking to do the same.
So... On to the actual usage of an IR converted DSLR. All of my comments here don't reflect on the actual conversion, take this more as a critique of physics.
Shooting IR is hard. And when it isn't hard, it is just vexing and confusing. Adding to this is the fact I haven't used my K-x for a long time, and have neglected my DSLR for 4 months (got a deal on a Voightlander film rangefinder, so I've been playing with film most of the year).
When you first start using you IR conversion, you realize that everything you've learned about light and metering are now wrong. First you must realize that white balance isn't. You need to set a custom balance, and then set it so grass is considered white. Further, if your going to work on RAW, make sure to set up a custom profile for IR, since pretty much every shot will be at the farthest cool end of the spectrum. You expect a bright shot; nope you underexpose everything to pure black. You expect a dark shot; nope, you get a nice pure white frame. This is especially true of scenes with foliage. Common sense says that leaves are dark. In IR they aren't, they are white; worse, they are translucent, so your scene is very bright. For a normal outdoor scene, with tons of sky, generally you expect it to be bright; nope, it is going to be underexposed because the sky is very dark in IR. A sky with clouds on the other hand, can completely eat your dynamic range since clouds are bright and the sky is black.
Indoor lighting is a crap shoot. Incandescent and halogen have almost the same values as in visible photography. Florescent and LED lighting, on the other hand, has very dim to no light whatsoever, since they don't emit in that end of the spectrum at all. All of this renders on-camera metering somewhat useless. Take what the camera says as a very rough suggestion. So far, until I learn to "see" in infrared, shooting is very much an experience in trial and error, with lots of chimping in between. Shoot, look, adjust, shoot, look, adjust, repeat until it is passable. It also highlights one downfall of the K-x for IR shooting, only having +/-3 stops of EV compensation hurts. The 5 on higher end models would be godsend.
The on-camera flash is still usable, but you need to go modify the flash WB setting to not change it, otherwise your photos just come out red.
I haven't noticed any real variations in IR "color temperature", so far having a single custom WB works. Perhaps there is something I haven't found out about there, but so far IR is plenty uniform. Though, I haven't wrapped my head around color rendering yet. When shooting in color balanced IR, some things turn out blue, some things are warm white, and some are cool white, and some are dark rust red. I'm not sure what registers as blue, or why. Actually figuring out colors is a bit harder than exposures, they are very counter-intuitive.
Focusing is another bag of worms. IR focuses different than visible light, so even with a well adjusted camera (which mine seems to be), autofocus can go completely wrong. I've mostly noticed this close up, and far away; mid-range seems to work mostly fine. Shooting close requires some fine tuning, even if things in the viewfinder seem spot-on. Generally, when your first shot is a surprise, it is best to pop into live-view, zoom a bit, and do your fine tuning there. Even then, often, you depth of field isn't going to be exactly what you expect from normal shooting experience. Distant shots are harder, I had to do a fair amount of research to get it right (or mostly right rather). The first thing I noticed is that infinity focus on most shots were blurry. This is true on every lens I've tried. At first I thought I might have a calibration problem, but I don't. Physics are at fault, not my camera. The secret is stopping down, a fair bit. Every lens has a different sweet spot, where infinity is acceptable in IR, so there isn't a hard and fast rule of thumb. For the 15mm limited, it is f8, anything below that will be soft at infinity, and everything above is fine. I've also heard that using zone/hyperfocal focusing works too, but I haven't really wrapped my head around that yet.
Also... some lenses aren't going to be very good for IR shooting, even if they are beautiful for everyday photography. My biggest disappointment is the FA-50 1.7. I LOVE this lens for normal light, it is my second favorite lens for pure rendering personality. But in IR it flares like crazy. It doesn't have a hotspot (an over exposed bit thanks to the optics being only designed for visible light), but it flares even when the sun if far off frame. Most of my lenses work fine, especially the indomitable 15mm limited. Another odd issue is with my manual focus Sigma 24mm 2.8 Super-Wide II. The lens works fine, it might flare and lose contrast a bit more than usual (which is a lot, really), but still takes good shots if you take care, but the metal hood that came with it reflects IR like a mirror. The black paint on the hood is almost completely transparent to IR, so all your shots have odd reflection in them.
And on a more ethical note, be careful shooting people. Some fabrics and dyes are transparent to IR, so you might see things you don't want to. You don't get titillating X-ray vision, you just get to see peoples tattoos and under garments as shadows. When shooting people, I generally only shoot head-shots, to avoid this problem. Or a test shot, to make sure I'm not going to violate peoples privacy. It is rather uncomfortable, though. On a positive note, IR makes everyone looks like they have great skin, even if they might be prone to having giant black veins floating ghostly under the surface of their translucent porcelain skin.
I don't mean to sound negative. I'm having a blast, it is, somewhat, like learning photography all over again. Don't send your camera out hoping for a normal DSLR that just shoots IR instead of normal light. Expect a whole new, often frustrating, experience. When you dial it in right, the whole thing is worth it. You get that surreal, other-worldly, beauty that captivates in its strangeness. I'll post some sample shots after this, but I haven't really had a chance to get anything spectacular yet. It is far to hot here to go capture much more than my backyard, and I really haven't had a chance to travel out of town to grab anything interesting.
I'm also sorry for the length, rantiness, and lack of detailed information content, of this post. This is my first attempt at reviewing something, really, so... I also apologize for all typos, errors, and grammar faux pas.
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Originally posted by VoiceOfReason 
Post #1 by Omestes
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