Infrared Photography
My Hoya R72 infrared filter finally arrived yesterday. I used to have one of these filters when I owned the Sony CyberShot DSC-707 camera, but I got rid of it when I moved to the digital SLR camera. Infrared photography didn't work as well with the SLR and I had no use for the filter after I got rid of the Sony camera. With the purchase of the new Canon PowerShot G9, I decided to give it a try again. None of the US-based camera retailers had this filter in stock, so I went to Ebay and found a good deal on one from a vendor in Hong Kong. Luckily, the filter arrived here in 11 days, which was better than I expected on a slow mail trip of that distance.
This photograph was made at ISO 80, f/2.8, and 8 seconds in manual exposure mode on the G9. I don't have much sunlight to work with today. The skies are partly cloudy, but the effect of the infrared filter is still definitely visible. The first issue I encountered during this test was that the Canon G9 seems to max out at a 1" shutter speed in the aperture priority mode. I had to switch to manual mode to get a long enough exposure with the infrared filter in place. By nature, this infrared filter blocks all visible light below 720 nanometers, which equates to nearly 12 stops of light in most cases. Longer exposures are normal for this type of photography with digital cameras.
This particular photo has no real intrigue on its own, but it's just a test. Now that I know I can get the results I want with this camera and filter, I'll shoot some more interesting photos with it in the near future...