As I'm seriously thinking of getting a Pentaxian, I wonder if anybody has tried shooting infrared with the great-looking K20d.
I was shooting a lot of IR with my compact and am looking for a better tool. As far as I've read, the K100d did Infrared perfectly with hand-holdable shutter speeds, while the K10d can do IR, but always requires a couple of seconds exposure.
As I'm seriously thinking of getting a Pentaxian, I wonder if anybody has tried shooting infrared with the great-looking K20d.
I was shooting a lot of IR with my compact and am looking for a better tool. As far as I've read, the K100d did Infrared perfectly with hand-holdable shutter speeds, while the K10d can do IR, but always requires a couple of seconds exposure.
Any experiences?
None here but reports from those that have tested the IR response of their new K20Ds indicate similar IR response to the K10D.
I took one yesterday, but I believe it's just a particular set of levels for the b/w conversion, not a true infrared shot. Too bad but not really surprising.
Of course, I could be wrong. If I get time, I'll try to shoot another few today.
Someone needs to post a photo taken with the K20D using it's built-in infrared filter. Apparently it does in-camera IR conversion.
I think in-camera IR is nothing but a Photoshop-like filter. It's just mocked IR. You can easily distinguish by looking at plants: Real IR generally makes foliage or lawn very bright, photoshopped does keep the brightness.
Photoshops filter for converting colour images to black-and-white has a preset called "Infrared", which is just some combination of coefficients for different colours to give a "infrared-ish" look to the resultant B&W image. K20D very very likely does just that. I really can't imagine the camera really physically moving the IR-cut filter (that's the thing in front of sensor that gets rid of most of the infrared) aside from the sensor and later back. Imagine the horrible cleaning problems if dust gets between the IR-cut filter and sensor.... I'm not even talking about scratches made by sand particles so near to sensor ....it would look awful. So unless they have moved the IR filter somewhere between the mirror and the lens (which would kind of show ) I don't believe a real IR mode exists.
I think that the K20D is slightly better than the K10D. Here is a pic I took outside work with a hoya r72 filter on the 18-55 lens. It is ISO 800 1.3 sec at f4. the blurry spot is some balloons blowing in the wind.
That looks pretty good, doesn't it? It seems to be very sunny weather, but around one second isn't that bad And for what I've seen, ISO 1600 seems quite usable, so less than a second should be possible.
Did AF work with the filter on? How about Liveview, can it be used for framing with the R72?
Will try to swap channels of the pic, let's see how it works.
I have not tried it with live view yet. I will see if the sun comes out tomorrow and see what it can do. The Af did work, but the metering did not. The exposure was a little bit of trial and error.
The live view does allow you to compose with the LCD screen. It is not really bright and easy to see, but it is easier than composing and then putting the filter back on.
The live view does allow you to compose with the LCD screen. It is not really bright and easy to see, but it is easier than composing and then putting the filter back on.
Thanks for trying, cardnick!
Is that for bright sunlight, meaning ideal conditions? Or could it be better on a really bright day?
There are other threads mentioning that the K20d's LV is close to unusable for IR, at least that's my interpretation. It would be really interesting to see what this means in a picture - can anybody take one of the LV with R72 in action?
LV doesn't help judging the exposure's brightness, right?
Maybe one should go for two cameras, one for IR, say a compact with LV or a K100D, and one for normal visible light photography ...
the test was in bright sunlight conditions. The live view was not useful in seeing exposures brightness. The screen was hard enough to see because of the glare from the sunlight. I am still excited about the K20's IR capabilities. It is much better than my K10.
And for what I've seen, ISO 1600 seems quite usable, so less than a second should be possible.
