B's Photography: Holkham Hall - A bit of Infrared photography and Deers

Friday 15 May 2015

Holkham Hall - A bit of Infrared photography and Deers

'Long time - no blog'. Was way back in March that I last created a blog. I have been taking photos but the time has been spent on Trips out with family and friends, various Cambridge Camera Club events (including our excellent annual exhibition) and building a Summer House at the bottom of our garden. A task that has taken longer than expected, but most enjoyable. Not finished yet.

Ann Miles was doing a talk for a Camera Club near Holt in Norfolk. Sue and I went along with her and we spent two days around Norfolk taking photos. A very enjoyable time. Our first stop was at Holkham Hall. The prime intension was to use the two new filters I had purchased. A R72 Infrared filter and a 10 stop 'big stopper'.

I am lucky enough that the main lenses I use these filters with are all the same filter size so at this point I did not need to invest in the square filter system a lot of people in our club use. (Lee Filter System). In fact for the infrared filter to work you have to block out all the visible light and this can only really be achieved by a screw on filter. I did a bit of research on the IR Filter and the Hoya one came out with good reviews. The alternative for Infrared work is to have a digital camera converted. This was my intension but my old Canon 350D has now stopped working :(

The problem with both filters is that once they are mounted on the lens you cannot see what you are doing. So composition and focus have to be done with the filter off. I did find (later in the day) that I could use the big stopper on Live View.

First the Infrared filter ....
I wanted an image with white clouds on blue sky on a sunny day. Plus the clouds moving. As it happened the wind was quite strong and moving clouds was not a problem. I mounted my camera on my Manfrotto befree travel tripod. This is a lightweight metal tripod (weighing only 1.4kg) so I had to be careful with vibration resonance in the wind .......

I started with a colour capture .....

Colour capture

This was a simple mono conversation in NIK Silver effects - no fancy control points etc.

Mono conversion using NIK Silver EFex Pro

I then fitted the R72 Infrared filter. I estimatrd a 10 - 12 stop difference to a no filter capture which gave an exposure time of 30 seconds ....

With R72 Filter fitted. 30 second exposure.

I was quite pleased with the results on the screen of the camera all be it a red image.

I moved closer to the tree and again took a colour capture ....

Colour capture.

I then fitted the R72 Filter.

With R72 Filter fitted. 30 second exposure.

It was pure luck that the clouds seem to radiate from behind the tree. The Green leaves of the tree where rendered as white. With this one I did add NIK Control points to bring out texture in the grass and to 'darken the green' slightly.

I then tried the Infrared filter out on the house ....

With R72 Filter fitted. 30 second exposure.

My conclusion at this point (I will be playing more) is that although you do not get the 'complete' infrared effect you would get by using a converted digital camera it does produce some interesting images. The main disadvantage is that you have to work with very long exposures (a converted camera works as a normal digital camera).

For this next image I used my 'big stopper' This is a 10 stop neutral density filter. I liked the drama it brought out in the clouds and the movement in the leaves. These again were with a 30 second shutter speed ....