Originally posted by vizjerei actually there is a setting in K20D that it will output the picture as infrared picture, but of course it is just a digital filter.
Yesterday (Oct 18) I was at a seminar put on by the Abbotsford Photo club.
APAC Seminar Home While there, I had a chance to speak with a Pentax rep who was displaying demo images from the K20D (IR included). From his description some infrared light passes the filter which is built into the camera. For normal pictures this remaining infra red is removed electronically. However when you set the K20D to the infra red setting the infra red which makes it through they physical (in body) filter is extrapolated to recover an accurate infra red image.
I had some time this evening to play with it, and there may be something to what he had to say. I set my K20d as follows. 18-250 F3.5 - 6.3 locked at 18mm. F4 2 Second Exposure, ISO 200 Auto White Balance, No flash. As the image will only be posted here, I set the camera to record a 2 megapixel jpg. I then resized it 800X600 with the Microsoft "image resizer" powertoy.
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
As a test, I just did a quick hand held shot of my TV remote in a dark room (no visible light at all).
As you can see from the attachment the K20d did record some of the IR light that the tv remote was emitting. Not sure how well this will work in the field, but I will do some additional testing with it. The demo shots the Pentax rep had were quite impressive.
To complete the test, I repeated it with the K20D set to "Natural" It did pick up some light from the remote which shows red in the picture, but was invisible while doing the test.
To set the K20D to IR:
- Press Fn
- Press OK
- Move left or right until you get to BW
- Move down and change the filter effect to Infrared Color
Press OK to complete the change.
To change back set the filter to Natural rather than BW.
Last edited by pureluck; 10-19-2008 at 10:14 PM.
Reason: Added info on setting camera to IR