[jct us101]

I can't see anything out of my viewfinder! I put one on my 50mm f/2 and I can see a hint of what's TTL, but mostly just my eye is what I'm seeing. How does this work!?

[jct us101]

Also, incredibly stupid question. What do I do with my photos once I've taken them? They have a very odd reddish glow...for some reason I had expected them to look...white.

[wildlifephotog]

Compose without filter, then hold it in front of lens or lightly screw it in.

Open in Photoshop and convert gray scale

Note: Old age makes for empty memory.

[jct us101]

I don't want it in gray scale, though.

[Just1MoreDave]

If you shot in RAW, choose some green foliage to white balance on with the filter on. This gives you a better starting point for post-processing if you do it afterwards in Adobe Camera RAW. I always forget to do it before shooting; it would probably work better.

I have never been very good at the next steps in PP, but you're pretty much making up color on your own. The IR image doesn't have "real" color.

[Luciferase]

Hey Jus_us101,

I’m new to IR photography too. Let me sum up what I’ve read so far. And for those experienced, please correct me if I’m wrong.

What you saw was exactly what I saw, basically nothing are seen through the viewfinder because it took out all EM waves under 720nm or less (in other words all colour light).

Metering is slight more accurate with multi –spot, but it’ll still be underexposure, only way to check is by checking image with LCD after each shot.

IR are usually done on landscape, hence focusing is usually at infinity.

Greater than 5 sec exposures are normal for landscape even at bright sunlight condition. So, again meaning that portraits will be quite hard for subjects to keep still, not recommended.

Use lower ISO to reduce noise.

Make sure WB is correctly set before you take the image. And take image in RAW.

PP is necessary if you are not doing B&W or if you don’t want a red only image.

Following are the step for PP in PS.
1. Load the already auto level (colour and contrast) JPG (converted after RAW) to PS
2. Apply a channel mixer (under adjustment layer)
3. In red channel – set red to 0% and blue to 100%
4. In blue channel – set blue to 0% and red to 100%
5. Play around with the 3 channel combinations until you are satisfy with your image

The end

[jct us101]

Yup about what I read, you mean RGB by the three color combos in the channel mixer, right?

[Luciferase]

For windows (not sure whether its the same with mac)
Under layer -
Add new adjustment layer -
Channel mixer

then double click the layer mixer and you get a output channel of red/ green/ blue.

I've only done this once and couldn't get it (the colour and surreal like feel) right yet. Will start taking somemore IR pictures when and if my step-ring arrives as mention on my other thread.