Sunday, April 6. 20082008.04.05: Infrared Flower Photography
To break the "monotony" of my usual work I wanted to try something different with some of the newly-acquired equipment. Using the Horseman LE, a Fujinon-W 150/5.6 single-coated lens designed for 4x5 format coverage with movements and the Betterlight Super 6000-HS scanback and an old 5" Fresnel tungsten theatrical spot lamp, Leanna and I explored some of the flowers we picked up this day using mostly light that can't be seen by humans and typically isn't controlled in most types of infrared photography. While there are more photos and there will be more information coming on this blog, Bjørn Rørslett not only has a wealth of information about infrared photography on his website but even information about UV photography specifically of certainly plants which I believe is one photographic discipline that he's especially famous for. While I pursue non-visible light photography for aesthetic and artistic reasons only, Mr. Rørslett goes a giant step further to pursue such photography as what appear to be scientific ends.
 One of the finished images. Corners from two stray petals from another flower were digitally removed from the shot. Image was extracted from the Better Light control box's hard drive as a DNG and converted in Adobe Camera RAW. The line time was very short . . . I recall it being around 1/500-1/1500 of a second so the entire exposure at full resolution took about 35 seconds. No visibly opaque filter was used. Lens was shot at about F/8 to prevent the back/right edge of the flower from becoming this uniform smear.  Another completed image. Again, image was extracted as a DNG and converted in Adobe Camera RAW. No visible light filter was used for this particular shot and visible light was about four to six stops less intense than the infrared being generated by the tungsten lamp. Aperture was approximately F/11.  Leanna spritzing up the models.   One of the specimens. You can see that it looks very different with visible light and with a small format camera that has no selective focus movements than it does in infrared on a camera with virtually unlimited perspective control and selective focusing freedom. There were some other noteworthy finished photographs and some process shots.  A shot taken of one of the flowers but using the Hoya R72 filter which is almost visually opaque. This shot was processed to a greyscale colour space.  A shot before changing light and flower direction but with otherwise similar composition. One of the biggest changes was the use of a Hoya R72 filter which is virtually opaque to visible light. Here it is processed with significant amounts of saturation boosting and that's all of the colour that one could extract. The exposure time was approximately the same as with the shot done without any visible light filtration. On the full resolution file, Leanna and I noticed that the visible light-cut photos seemed to exhibit a softer look.  I'm totally including this shot because of Leanna's cleavage.   This shot gives you an idea of what the composition looked like on the ground glass of the camera. Photo by Leanna.  It's hard work especially for a shooter not acustomed to shooting small objects with a Fresnel and having never shot digital infrared before.
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Those are some interesting and well-thought-out compositions Klyment. You have yourself an amazing and expensive piece of still-life capture equipment. Good on you for pioneering large-format scanbacks. I am sure that you will be able to find both practical and artistic uses for your new camera.
Oh, and I'm also sending out a big 'Hi' to Leanna. Our MGTSC 352 classes together were a lot of fun. Hi Leanna!
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Michael Shandro
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2008-04-15 08:59
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I have already found lots of ways to use the large format scanback system but I'm far from being a pioneer. Other than the Provincial Archives, I think there may be a company in Edmonton that owns a similar system but they keep it permanently installed for reprographic purposes only. Mine may be the only one that can be operated in the field.
I'll let Leanna know you said hi.
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K
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2008-06-11 15:27
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