Infrared Photography - Canon 10D vs. Nikon D100

Common question (10D vs. D100), different slant - Infrared shooting.

 

I have no lenses for either Canon or Nikon, so I'll be starting from

scratch when buying either camera. About 60% of my film shooting is

in infrared (primarily with an 87C filter), but I've decided to switch

over to digital.

 

So far in my research I prefer the 10D over the D100, but I've heard

that the D100 has much better IR sensitivity. Unfortunately, I

haven't been able to find any quantitative information to compare them

- IR range and sensitivity at a given spectral frequency.

 

Does anyone have any information on this, or have some ideas on where

to steer for some hard IR data? I'll be pouring all my money from the

sale of my film equipment into a digital body and lenses, so I'd

greatly appreciate any additional input for an informed decision.

 

Thanks much

have you looked here: <a href = http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html> http://

www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html</a>?

IMHO the 10D sucks when it comes to IR. It's a great camera and I love it, but for IR it's pretty dismal. It's not designed for IR use and it shows.

 

If I were you and I was a real IR enthusiast, I'd stick with film, or stick with film and get one of the digicams that does really well with IR (I think some of the Sony models are pretty decent).

A couple users offered <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005Mky">10D IR examples</a> in the archives.

Actually, I find the 10D is ok for IR myself - can't comment on the Nikon though.

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The 5 megapixel Sony F707 and F717 models would be the ideal IR digicams as they have a dedicated night mode which physically removes the IR blocking filter from the lens. Unfortunately this mode is restricted to an aperture of F2 only, which is a shame because for landscapes you want something smaller, even on a digicam with a small sensor the resulting DOF is probably too shallow.

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You can check out some pretty good work by <a href="http://www.photo.net:1618/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=158972">Juergen Kollmorgen</a> with this camera.

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Another alternative is to use one of the early 2mp cameras, such as the Olympus C2000, as these are very sensitive to IR. More information can be found <a href="http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/ir.htm">here</a>. Their main limitation is obviously the lack of pixels, enlarging a 2 megapixel file to 8x10 is pushing it to the absolute limit, with these cameras at least. I have used an Oly C2000 for IR though, it's so sensitive that you can hand hold, and preview the results on the viewfinder as you shoot, here's an example:

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<img src="http://www.photographlondon.co.uk/misc/american-river.jpg">

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The 10D is far less sensitive to IR than either of the cameras mentioned, but it is still very usable. You have to completely ignore the camera meter and use the review and histogram to evaluate exposure. I find 8 seconds at F8 and ISO 400 is typical in bright sunlight. The noise is slightly worse than with visible light, probably because of the increased exposure, but the images are pretty good. A tripod is obviously a necessity.

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<img src="http://www.photographlondon.co.uk/misc/the-pagoda.jpg">

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The results from the 10D enlarge much better than those from the C2000, however the long exposure make shooting less convenient.

Well I don't think 8s @f8, ISO 400 in bright sunlight is all that usable. Even shooting Konica 750, one of the slowest IR films out there, I get 1/30s @ f8 in bright sunlight, plus I get less noise via the film route. The 10D digital IR noise looks somewhat ugly to me.

 

HIE IR film is even faster, plus it has a "look" (due to the lack of antihaltion backing, interesting grain structure and extended IR sensitivity) that digital IR just can't match.

 

At 8s, you can't get sharp images of foliage unless there is zero wind, and even sharp shots of people are difficult.

 

Digital IR is certainly a lot easier, but I don't think the 10D is the camera of choice if 60% of your work is going to be IR.

If that much of your work is going to be Digital IR, the D100 is going to force you to use a tripod for every shot. On the other hand, cameras such as the much older coolpix 950 let me do fully handheld digital IR photos in the 1/60th or 1/30th range in bright sun, it's only 2mp however. The Sony F717 is another excellent choice at 5mp, it can actually move the IR-blocking hot mirror out of the lens path making the camera super-sensitive, however the camera's firmware limits you to shooting at 1/60th or slower, due to sony camcorder folks using this feature to see through sheer clothing on the beach :/

 

I really enjoy doing infrared digitally on my coolpix 950, the one big difference is being able to see in real-time infrared on the LCD. It doesn't look like HIE at all, but it is very interesting on it's own, I use an 89b and get a great false-color output that has a surreality unlike anything i've done in the 'analog' world.

 

Cheers.

I use a sonyf707 and a <a href=

http://www.2filter.com/prices/products/bw093.html>B+W 093</a>

IR filter.<BR>

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hey , this is a great site for infrared photography and it has links to a chat room for any questions pertaining to infrared www.infrareddreams.com/ i shoot alot of infrared and i bought a sony f-707 specificaly just for infrared it is the most reliable and easiest to use because it has the night shot mode that allows you to pretty much see through the view finder or lcd screen exactly what your shot off the camera will look like , instead of looking through the filter and guessing what you'll end up with.