InfraRed Adventures

 Over the holidays I had one of my old digital cameras converted to infrared. I had been meaning to do that for about a year but wasn't sure which camera to convert. LifePixel offered a holiday special of $60 off and that prodded me to decide. I chose to convert my Canon G-11  which I had repaired the previous year but still wasn't using despite it having been my favorite hiking camera back in the day. There are several options for conversion depending on the color spectrum you want to capture. I went for the basic B&W conversion.

When I got the camera back the note suggested settings to get the best results but I shoot RAW, then adjust the images later so I went with my usual settings of RAW capture, Auto ISO, and Aperture priority.  It seems to work fine. Framing images with it is a bit odd because the image on the screen is shades of pink & red., plus the screen is only about 2¼" wide by 1¼" high. It's enough to give me a reasonable idea of the composition.

I could use the optical rangefinder but I've never liked the finder on that camera in part because I have to remove my glasses to use it. The above image is a copy of the RAW file sized to approximate what the screen shows me.

I import all my photos using LightRoom Classic and after some experimentation, I have decided that the first step (after converting to B&W) is to use the Tone Curve to adjust the basic values. One of the differences between film and digital is that film records light on a curve. The silver salts have to receive a certain exposure to light before they start to react. Consequently the 'characteristic curve' rises from the baseline left to right slowly at first, then steadily upward until the salts are affected as much as they can be, then the curve flattens again. The result, if your exposure is correct, is that you end up with a shallow 'S' curve that gives you detail in both the shadows and the highlights. Digital images are recorded on a straight line which results in a relatively flat image. The default 'curve was a straight line from the bottom left corner to the top right corner.  If you shoot in JPG mode you won't notice that because the camera's algorithm applies a curve that the camera's engineers determined to be good for most photos. The problem with that for serious photographers is that in-camera conversion to JPG 'throws away' data that could be used to convert an image to your taste. A long way of explaining why Tone Curves is my first adjustment. As you can see below, I created a custom curve profile for the image above...

The result of conversion to B&W in the Basic panel of LR plus the curve is seen below.

That photo didn't really require anything else because the tonal distribution is pretty even throughout but some photos I made later required additional adjustment using LR's other tools. I shot several (8-10) photos on Norman Ridge which feature a relatively dark barn in a field of snow that is brighter than the cloudy sky. I wanted the tracks that the tractor made the snow (and were hard to see on the camera screen). I also wanted a greater tonal gradation in both than the flat curve of the RAW image. A Tone Curves adjustment similar to the one above took care of the foreground but the sky was still too flat so I applied a mask to the sky and increased the definition with a combination of Dehaze/Clarity then I reduced the Texture in the sky to reduce noise. I also did a small amount of sharpening on the barn and tree.  The two photos below are my favorites of the barn as of today. I might change my mind another day after playing with the series in LR more.

This is kind of a geeky post but I wanted to talk about what I had done and how I got there. If you have questions, please ask.

Usual disclaimer: The photos are copyrighted. Please respect that. The discount on the camera conversion was open to everyone and LifePixel did not ask for a review or give me any special consideration for writing this. They don't even know I'm writing it. I was pleased with their service and recommend them but there are others out there doing conversions and I am not in a position to make any comparisons.

Converting to Toned B&W in Lightroom

Reflections in a Vernal Pool - Ampersand Mt.

I am playing with some photos from last year. This one is from a climb up Ampersand Mt. "Reflections in a Vernal Pond". I converted it to black & white and added sepia toning. I don't care for Lightroom's sepia preset. It is too heavy-handed for my taste. The hue is fine but I set the shadow tone saturation back by a third (from 15 down to 10) and turned the highlight saturation off entirely. Toning the highlights only serves to kill them and reduce overall contrast. The whites should be white IMO.

The Cleft on Ampersand Mt. 

Ampersand Mt. Summit

As always prints are available. Email me for details. I can print up to 12x18 inches myself and have larger prints made if need be. If you wish to share with others, please give them the URL for this page, do not repost without my permission. Doing so violates my copyright.

Out-Takes from the Daily Photo Series #2

Here is another 'out-take' from the Daily Photo series, a barn near where we live.

Daily Photo - Day 26

I took a longer walk/hike than usual this morning, a total of over 8 miles. It ran well into the afternoon because it was raining for part of the morning. The Weather Channel showed a window of "not raining" between 11 am and 3 pm. They were pretty much dead on and I managed to avoid getting rained on. I decided to walk down our road to the river and then hike the service road on the other side that follows the penstock between the dam in Colton and the power station at the bottom of our hill.

The penstock is mostly steel pipe but where it has to turn or bend down because of drops in elevation the straight pipe is connected by concrete sections. The first photo is of a pattern on the surface of one of those concrete links. I often find interesting abstracts on old concrete.

The second photo is a section of the dam in Colton. All the angles, stairs and railings appealed to me.

I hiked back from Colton via the East trail along the river and of course, I was attracted to MUSHROOMS! What else? But I'm only putting one in this post. I photographed about a half dozen. 8.34 miles of road walking, hiking and photography, all in 3 hours and 25 minutes between rain showers. A good day.

Daily Photo - Day 23

Back to my usual trail today but I went farther than usual before turning around. I photographed more mushrooms (surprise) but was determined to [post something that was not fungus for the daily photo. I shot three views of this but made an amateur mistake with all three. One of my maxims, when I was teaching photography back in the days of film, was "A picture is worth a thousand words but all thousand words should be about the same thing". In other words, don't include anything that isn't necessary. In shooting this I tried to include all of the plants (including the Joe Pie Weed) that are reflected in the water. That necessitated including a waterfall that was some distance beyond. Too much stuff. It didn't work so this is rather severely cropped. I also converted it to B&W and played with the tones to make the green grasses stand out more against the rock. Now I have to remember my own advice when shooting future photos so I don't have to work so hard for the result I intended.

Daily Photo - Day 7

On the Pumpkin Hill Rd. there is an interesting barn that I have been meaning to photograph as a reference for a drawing. It is long and quite close to the road so I had to shoot several photos in sequence to get the full width. Because I walked along as I shot the photos the view angles changed so it doesn't make a good panorama when stitched. The software can't resolve the different angles but it will be adequate as a drawing reference. Some parts of the barn, like this one, are interesting in themselves. I liked this one the best.  Just for fun, I made a toned B&W version as well. I think it suits the subject matter.

Signed prints are available of either version. A  small print (approximately 6x9 image area) matted out to 11x14" is $50 plus postage/shipping. I can print up to 12x18" if you want a larger print. Contact me if you are interested.

Just playing in Lightroom

While going through my photos from the last 12 months to decide what to enter in SLCAC member show I got sidetracked playing with this one I shot while climbing the Saranac Six. I converted it to B&W with a modified version of infrared filtration.

WayBack Sunday: I have been looking over my Lightroom catalog from when I first began using digital regularly with a 4MP Olympus camera. This is from the spring of 2002, a photograph of Roaring Brook Falls as seen from Rt 73.

The original JPG color version was never printed because it was flat. I realized looking at it today, that at that point I was still shooting as a B&W photographer, which was the way I had seen the world up until then, but I didn't know then how (or have the tools) to manipulate digital images the way I did with film. This morning I changed it to monochrome and then modified the tones that way I would have a print from B&W film. Then it came to life for me.

I tend to keep exposures that a lot of photographers I know would delete in a first edit of a shoot but I find that some images require a second or even third look with fresh eyes, even if it is years later.

Click on the image to see it larger. I plan to continue my review and updating of old images from 2002 forward. I will post them here as the review continues.

Another Season Begins

I went canoeing in the Adirondacks on Saturday. I hadn't been out in my canoe in the last two summers and vowed not to miss another season. I started on Mountain Pond on Rt 30 but the wind was pretty strong down the length of the pond and was a headwind on my return to where I had put in.  I wanted to paddle more but decided I needed a more protected body of water so for my second excursion I went to Church Pond in Paul Smiths.

There was some headwind as I set out but it was less strong, or so I thought as I had less trouble paddling into it. Church Pond is somewhat smaller than Mountain Pond but is linked to Little Osgood Pond by a canal that was dug by Paul Smith. There is another canal from Little Osgood to Osgood Pond which by some standards could be called a lake. I have never understood the pond vs lake naming in the Adirondacks. It is so capricious that it must have been a matter of whim by the person naming the body of water. It does not seem to bear any relationship to relative size.

The stump above is along the shore of Church Pond on the side toward St John's of the Wilderness (http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/08/st-johns-of-wilderness.html). It was the new evergreen growing on the side of the stump that first caught my eye. Upon closer inspection I decided to include the whole stump and surroundings. I especially liked the reflections on the ripples in the water. The image was converted to B&W in Lightroom based on a preset that I created. I tend to tweak all presets taking into account the individual image and this was no exception.

After paddling the length of Church Pond I came to the canal where I found a second interesting stump. Photographing this one was a challenge from the canoe. The canal is completely under the shade of the surrounding trees and a canoe is not a very stable platform. I managed a sufficiently short shutter speed (exposing for the shadows) by raising the ISO and opening the diaphragm to f/8, helped along undoubtedly by the image stabilization in my Canon 7D. The version above has a modified Lightroom Infrared preset applied to it. I did away with the negative clarity in the preset and added some sharpening, also a touch of burning in on the upper stump.

I wasn't able to navigate the second canal to Osgood from Little Osgood because of blow down across the narrow channel. Perhaps another day. On the return trip I stopped to photograph the lean-to and dock that are adjacent the canal in Church Pond. Again I used the modified LR Infrared preset. Returning to the dock where I had put in I had a tailwind but noticed a distinct current flowing in the opposite direction. That may well account for the relative ease of paddling into the wind when I first set out. It was a good start to a new season of paddling and hiking in the Adirondacks.

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