PRE White Balance Gone on IR Converted D40 (Digi-Newbie)

[robert_hurd]

Hi, Photo.Net Folks,

 

Could y'all in the Nikon crowd help a Medium/ 4x5 Format film guy with a Nikon D40 Digital Infrared conversion

performed by LifePixel?

 

BACKGROUND: Wanting to try Infrared, I spent over a thousand on a Nikon D40, a Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 18-70

mm lens (since that lens seemed to be LifePixel's preferred calibration standard), and the Standard Color IR

conversion by LifePixel.

 

DISCOVERY: I received the converted D40 only to discover it no longer supports the Custom White Balance PRE

setting. Specifically, aiming the camera at sunlit grass does NOT allow me to preset the D40 White Balance to

use bright green as it's light grey. Behold, here is the fine print I failed to find in LifePixel.com's FAQ page, before I

chose to purchase the D40, lens, and conversion:

 

LifePixel FAQ: "Can I use the camera custom white balance function after conversion? Most cameras will set a

custom white balance just fine after conversion with the exception of Nikon D40, D40x, D80, D200 and FujiFilm S3.

With these cameras you will need to shoot RAW images and adjust the white balance to your liking in post

production."

 

 

QUESTION 1: Since I now know that I must shoot in RAW format, will I pay any penalty in having to then use

PhotoShop to make the images look decent. (Having a Photoshop worksession to adjust every image is not what I

planned, but the bigger question is whether I will pay an image price by not being able to adjust the White

Balance when I take each shot.)

 

QUESTION 2: Do any of you have ideas on what White Balance Setting I should use on the converted D40? (Since

I must use Menu Selections.)

 

QUESTION 3: Although IR images in the converted camera are Deep Red with Black, Grey, and White (as if I was

using an SLR with a Deep Red Filter), will I still be able to compose and take a good photo, prior to heading indoors

for an evening of Photoshop labor? (..my eyes are not what they once were).

 

Your help will be appreciated,

 

Thank you!

 

Robt.

[oskar_ojala]

1) Shoot raw -- you will need the improved quality and dynamic range anyway when doing IR. You can just copy your WB setting over several other raw files so no biggie.

 

2) Depends what you want and what IR filter you use. Try something like tungsten (incandescent light) for starters.

 

3) What do you mean? You can take a pic as usual, it's good to check how it turned out on the LCD since exposure and composition can be tricky in IR.

[robert_hurd]

Thanks, Oskar!

 

My understanding is that..since it's a LifePixel converted D40, then the whole IR filter scenario no longer applies. (to

to checkout www.LifePixel.Com)

 

Below is an example image following the Nikon D40 IR conversion. Since I can't PREset white balance to green

grass, then the resulting IR image does not come out in the classic IR look.

 

Also...I'm discovering that Nikon has their own .NEF Raw format, which is not so good to work with Photoshop CS2!!!

 

Harumph....i should have stayed with film...

 

:)

 

R

[robert_hurd]

Trying again to post a small Snag-It .JPG from the larger file....

 

Robt<div></div>

[frans_waterlander]

Shooting RAW will give you the best possible results, so no, you don't pay a penalty. When shooting RAW you don't care about a white balance setting on your camera since the white balance is choosen when you do your RAW conversion. What value to choose depends on what effect you are after; you will trade off sharpness versus the typical IR effects of dreamy, diffuse images. Nobody can choose that for you..

[geoffs1]

1) More specifically: Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and Bridge work very nicely together for bulk-processing shots.

 

If you select a number of raw files in Bridge and open them, ACR will open with all photos available. Pick one (maybe the grass shot you would have used to set the in-camera WB) and adjust exposure, WB, etc. then press the "Select All" button, followed by "Synchronize" to apply the settings from the one shot to all of them. You can then press "Done" to get back to bridge.

 

If you want a JPEG for each raw file I'd suggest creating an action with the processing steps you like, then use the "Batch" or "Image Processor" automation from Bridge to create a JPEG for every RAW using that action.

 

Once you become familiar with all the steps, it takes only a few button-presses and a minute or two to get Photoshop grinding away on all your raw-files.

[robert_hurd]

Thanks, Y'all!

 

Since I'm new to digital stuff, then I need a glossary....

 

However, it looks like Adobe Photoshop CS2 (which I do own) does not work with the newer Adobe Camera Raw plug-

in for converting Nikon .NEF files to RAW files...whereas CS3 (which I don't own) does work with the ACR plug-in.

 

But...is Adobe Camera Raw a standalone application that I don't have to actually plug in to CS2? ...that I could use

to convert the .NEF files to something I could work with in CS2?

 

I need to go Google "Bridge" to find out what THAT is.

 

Sigh...my head hurts...

 

:)

 

Robt.

[waltflanagan]

Let's back up a minute. All digital sensors are sensitive to IR. Camera companies put an IR blocking filter over the sensor because most people want to photograph in visible light. Lifepixel removes this IR blocking filter and replaces it with a filter that blocks visible light. You have your choice of 3 different visible light blocking filters so the custom WB that you select depends on what filter you had Lifepixel install.

 

Shooting in RAW gives you more flexibility to adjust things like the white balance so I highly suggest you shoot in RAW when shooting IR because there is really no such thing as white anymore.

 

I used the preset WB on my D70 but still shoot RAW. I'll check later to see what WB/tint it selected. Most RAW processors will use those as the starting point.

 

One reason to get an accurate WB in camera is because the histogram is based on using the WB the camera is set to. If you set the WB to tungsten and the histogram looks okay but later on the computer you change it to cloudy then the original histogram is no longer representative of the exposure.

[waltflanagan]

Bridge is basically the Adobe Photoshop file manager / image browser. If you download the Adobe DNG converter you can convert the Nikon NEF RAW file to the Adobe DNG RAW file format which should load into the older Photoshop CS2.

[tri-x1]

"Shooting in RAW gives you more flexibility to adjust things like the white balance so I highly suggest you shoot in RAW when shooting IR because there is really no such thing as white anymore."

 

EXACTLY. White balance and IR doesn't compute.

[robert_hurd]

Thanks, Walt!

 

I must go back and parse your reply..to understand it...being a film dood.

 

However, since I have the D40, then my Custom "PRE" setting no longer works, after LifePixel's conversion, as LifePixel states (and I discovered today): "Most cameras will set a custom white balance just fine after conversion with the exception of Nikon D40, D40x, D80, D200 and FujiFilm S3."

 

So....should I just pick a white balance from the drop down list and go with it. In various searches, it seems that some .NEF to RAW converters are not retaining the camera settings upon conversion....but I'm unsure how that impacts all of this.

 

My head still hurts!

 

:P

 

Robt.

[robert_hurd]

Well...

 

here's the deal with White Balance and IR Converted digital cameras. Since IR cameras capture reflected IR waves,

you need to decide what subject you want to register as light grey/ white in the IR image. The standard approach is

to use sunlit grass, so that the IR reflectance of the grass will register the same for leaves in the tree. Just go to

lifepixel.com, and it talks about all this.

 

Fortunately, I ordered LifePixel's DVD, so I better go home and watch it.

 

I had hoped paying for the IR Conversion would have made my life simpler. Silly me.

 

R

[waltflanagan]

Does anyone know WHY the D40/D80/D200/etc won't work with a preset white balance? With my D70 I took a picture of grass years ago and that is still in the preset white balance slot. Assuming it really doesn't work try taking a picture of green grass then in the RAW converter pick the "select this point to be white" and white balance off of that. That will give you the initial settings to use in the future.

 

I'm not an expert at white balance but most converters I've seen have a color temp and a tint or green balance as well. I can move the color temp slider all over but I still have a strong red color cast. Only changing the tint/green balance adjusts it to something more useful.

 

Unfortunately I don't use Photoshop's RAW converter but in Bibble the white balance shows as color temp 2421K and tint -74.

[waltflanagan]

Robert, I shoot IR with an unmodified D70. The IR blocking filter is relatively weak but still fairly strong. I put a Hoya R72 filter on the lens to block most of the visible light. The exposure times are 1-8 seconds long because a long exposure is needed to override the builtin IR blocking filter. Because of that you need a tripod, also you can't see through the filter so you have to compose first, then screw in the filter. Time consuming and impossible to shoot anything moving this way.

 

With the Lifepixel modification the visible light blocking filter is removed so exposure times are in the hand holdable range. Because the visible light blocking filter is over the sensor and not over the lens you can see through the viewfinder like normal and photograph anything handheld.

 

Right now my D70 is a backup, when I get a third camera the D70 will go off to Lifepixel or somewhere else and become a dedicated IR camera.

[lex_jenkins]

Robert, I just did a quick 'n' simple greyscale conversion of that JPEG and it sure looks like genuine b&w IR to me.

 

Never messed around with color IR myself so I don't know what it's supposed to look like. Last time I fooled around with b&w IR was as a teenager. When I found out color IR couldn't actually see through clothing I lost interest.

 

I'll bet after you get the hang of it you won't miss the hassles of wet darkroom IR and, especially, the incredible expense of the film.<div></div>

[joseph_wisniewski]

"Does anyone know WHY the D40/D80/D200/etc won't work with a preset white balance? With my D70 I took..."

 

Because they're newer and smarter than the D70. The old cameras did their color math by assuming green was "perfect", then applying "gain controls" to the red and blue channels to get them to match the green. This approach lacks accuracy, and makes it difficult to get saturated colors correct.

 

Newer cameras do their white balance math in terms of color temperature shift and a green/magenta shift. The light source has to be something that can be expressed as the color of an object so hot it glows red, orange, yellow, white, or blue. They then apply a little "green correction" for light sources like fluorescent lights that depart a bit from the spectrum of a hot, glowing object.

 

The old fashioned way of computing white balance let you do any white balance that you wanted, no matter how "weird" a color "white" was. On a camera with an 89B style filter (like a Life Pixel "color IR" conversion), white is "magenta", it has a lot of blue and red, but not much green. You need to reduce both red and blue to get them to match green, and that's exactly what the white balance algorithm did.

 

The new way of doing white balance means that you compute the red/blue balance on something called the "Plankian locus", which you can still do on an IR modified camera, but you then handle the lack of green by computing something called an "Iso line". This works much better for fluorescent lights that the old way, as well as daylight "contaminated" by green reflections off of vegetation, but it has a very limited range of adjustment, and can't handle the amount of green that a color IR conversion needs. The camera tries to do the calculation, gets a number that doesn't make sense, and gives up.

 

wizfaq

[joseph_wisniewski]

Walt, set your white balance to the lowest (reddest) color temperature that you can. If the D40 doesn't have "K" (or "Kelvin") white balance capability, set it to "incandescent", and set the fine control to +3.

 

If you do have Kelvin, set it as low as it will go. That will be something like 1900 or 2200. If it also has a "green" adjustment, try setting that to +100. If the images look too green, back green adjustment down a bit, you're trying for color neutrality.

 

Good luck.

[bjørn rørslett]

Darned Joe, you beat me to it. Just making an echo of the recommendation for setting W/B to the lowest Kelvin

offered, or failing that, to "Incandescent".

 

This won't affect the raw files (NEFs) of course, so they will still appear reddish because they do have recorded

more energy in the red channel. If you shoot with an 87C or RM90 type filter, the NEF would look greyish with a

faint magenta cast to it.

 

Robert: you'll find out sooner or later that NEFs can be converted outside the Adobe world. Lots of software

available. Also, don't forget you now can shoot IR even when the sun isn't shining. You can shoot IR at dawn or

dusk, in downpours, indoors, or even using a hot stove as "light" source. The appearance of digital IR is very

different from the (false) impression we tend to associate with IR (from the Kodak HIE days). It's not difficult

to process your images to look "hazed IR", but why don't have an open mind and explore the new avenues that are

opened up to you?

[robert_hurd]

Hi, All,

 

Thanks to each of you for your help. I looked in the book: David Busch's "Digital Infrared Pro Secrets", pp. 205-206. It turned out my Photoshop CS2 ACR utility recognized and successfully opened the .NEF format files.

 

In the ACR White Balance Control, Busch explains to use a Custom setting, by sliding the Temperature slider to 2000, and then sliding the Tint slider to a greenish -79. Or to use the eyedriopper to sample a grey space in the image. These two slider steps do indeed convert that image to at the the basic image tone needed prior to comtinuing with the other suggested IR Photoshop steps.

 

Thank you again for your help!

 

Robt,

[drime_kelsang]

Why not follow the instructions on the LifePixel site?

[robert_hurd]

That's a great idea, Drime.

 

...until you actually read the instructions posted on LifePixel.com, that do not list the steps required

to shift the Red out of a RAW file when the White Balance setting no longer functions in the DSLR:

 

http://www.lifepixel.com/digital-infrared/digital-infrared-photography-instructions.html

 

LifePixel's posted instructions DO describe how to adjust IR images in PS when the White Balance setting can be

SUCCESSFULLY adjusted to Green Grass. However, when the PRE White Balance no longer works after the IR

Conversion (on the cameras listed below), then it is necessary to shoot in RAW, and follow the instructions that I

posted, taken from David Busch's "Digital Infrared Pro Secrets". Such PS instructions are NOT found on the

LifePixel site (as of today, June 27).

 

The LifePixel website tutorials do not describe how to perform the Adobe Camera Raw correction when the White

Balance can no longer be preset after the IR Conversion. Nor does the LifePixel DVD.

 

Likewise, unless potential Customers drill down into the LifePixel FAQ (which I failed to do), Nikon owners won't

know in advance that certain Nikon cameras will no longer have a functioning PRE White balance setting after IR

Conversion (a bad thing). Here are the two sentences that I missed:

 

LIFEPIXEL FAQ: "Most cameras will set a custom white balance just fine after conversion with the exception of

Nikon D40, D40x, D80, D200 and FujiFilm S3. With these cameras you will need to shoot RAW images and adjust

the white balance to your liking in post production."

 

Here's the comment that LifePixel provided, when I emailed them after I received the converted D40...

 

LIFEPIXEL: "Unfortunately, the D40 is the only Nikon that will not let you set a custom white balance after it has

been converted to IR. The other ones listed will do so if you are persistant in the right conditions, but never the D40.

It is just like the S3Pro, as it will never let you set one either. With this being said, this camera is much better for

BW Infrared, and Color images become much harder. If you shoot in RAW, you can sometimes remove the red

caste from the foliage but in many situations, it isn't possible."

 

CONCLUSION: If I had known all this before I spent over a thousand on Camera, Lens, and Conversion, I would have

added a couple hundred dollars more to the kit, and gotten a Nikon model higher than the D40, to ensure PRE White

Balance capability after the Conversion.

 

I failed to find and read LifePixel's fine print. For a thousand dollars spent, I'm disappointed. So, I'm posting all this

to hopefully help the increasing number of folks considering the IR Conversion.

 

Robt.

[josh_goldberg1]

<p>I was having the same problem. Thank goodness I did the DIY filter replacement for my d40! Here's what I did.<br>

1. remove the lens and put the camera in mirror lockup.<br>

2. carefully drop old anti-alias/IR cut filter into the hole.<br>

3. reset camera, attach lens, carefully set white balance with the anti alias filter in. if it falls down it will not work, try to be careful. <br>

4. remove lens, do mirror lockup, tip the camera over for the old anti alias filter to drop back out.<br>

5. awesome ir photos!</p>

[dan_stattner]

<p>I have a Nikon d40x i had converted to IR and i have NO problem setting my custom white balance to a patch of grass. i works great</p>

[dan_stattner]

<p>here is a sample of my D40x images</p><div></div>