Infrared with the Horizon S3--and a Meditation on the State of Film Infrared Photography.

[OlDoinyo]

Having used the S3 both in UV and visible, I was curious to see what it might do on the other end of the spectrum; but there were some challenges to overcome. The first order of business was to improvise a filter, but I could not easily have a mount modified the way I did for the UV filter. I obtained a small R72 disk from Edmund of approximately the right diameter. I photographed some of my existing filters in the IR to see which blocked IR the least and selected the best candidate. Without destructively modifying the filter, I placed the R72 disk on top of the existing glass and sealed it in position with Blu-Tack putty, which gave me a filter assembly of the right type without undue lateral leakage, for which I tested.

 

Next I selected film. There are as far as I know only two films currently available (other than old discontinued products) that have IR sensitivity: the Rollei IR400 and the Film Photography Project Infrapan. The second of these is a bit of an enigma, as the FPP which sells this offers almost no documentation, leaving the user largely guessing about such things as speed, filtration, and processing--what is this stuff, anyway? Some inquiry online led to the conclusion that it may be repurposed Agfa Aviphot 400, an extended-red aerial photography film with an infrared tail on its response curve. It is odd-looking stuff, with a yellowish dye in the raw emulsion and no frame numbers or other margin markings of any sort. In the end, I decided that I would shoot these films with a working ISO of 6 and process them together in Microphen, which I had already tried for the first film.

 

I shot a test roll of the Rollei, using the camera's faster exposure range and more open apertures, but I immediately ran into a focus-shift problem, and apparently a wrong-way shift at that. Shooting only at the minimum aperture (f/16) was the only way to work around this, which fortunately made the problem largely go away; but I was stuck with using the camera's slow speed range and exposure times from 1/8 second to 1 second. One has to take care, as even the slightest tap on the tripod during a slow exposure can create smear bars and spoil the image.

 

Some sample frames with the Rollei film follow. The alert observer will note that I still struggle with a light leak on the left margin at times--a trip to the shop failed to resolve the issue completely.

 

 

The FPP film was the second to be tested:

 

 

The FPP proved a bit faster than the Rollei under the circumstances, and the negatives were a bit overexposed; a working ISO of 12 or 25 might have been a better match with this processing.

 

Both of these films are contrasty, without tremendous exposure latitude. The FPP might be a bit more contrasty than the Rollei. Both of these films also struggle to produce a really clean Wood effect, even with favorable filtration; foliage often comes out various shades of dirty grey rather than the snowy white so easily seen with digital sensors (or with older IR films that had deeper IR reach.) I have tried to work around this somewhat in post-processing, but the truth is that digital sensors are responsive to a wider range of IR than any film ever was, rendering the absorption tail of chlorophyll in the 710-730 nm range much less important. The present films probably have relatively little response beyond 760 nm, although some sensitivity out to 820 is claimed. Unfortunately for the film photographer, the days of HIE or Efke 820 are gone forever. Indifferent quality control is yet another issue: emulsion pinholes and other apparent defects are far more common than would have been tolerated 40 or even 20 years ago.

 

So is there really any point to this? Undoubtedly, if one took a modern (converted) mirrorless digital camera, and equipped it with, say, a Laowa 9mm lens with the suitable IR filter, that rig would almost certainly outperform what we see here by almost any metric (and the cylindrical projection naturally produced by the film camera could be easily duplicated from a rectilinear original via software.) So if one has such equipment or can afford that for panoramic photography, the answer would have to be no. If, on the other hand, one wishes to dabble in panoramic IR without spending thousands on gear, (or, for that matter, if you are one of the film diehards for whom anything digital is anathema) this might be a way to do it. It should be emphasized that these considerations do not apply to UV photography, as lenses such as the Laowa would not be expected to do well in UV.

[colinbm]

Beaut IR of the wide open spaces.

[lukaszgryglicki]

Love those scenes, so sad that film photography (especially IR) becomes more & more a challenge.

I know, because I have Pentax 67...

 

[Nate]

Really nice IR shots! That'd be a great place to do some night astro too.

[rfcurry]

Superb images! You are an artist, sir.

[lonesome_dave]

Very nice OlDoinyo. Both results remind me of the old Konica 750 film I used to shoot in my Pentax 6x7. Not a real profound Wood effect with that film either but a more pleasing range of tones than could be achieved with the High Speed Infrared from Kodak.

 

I didn't realize there were such films that could still be used for IR. Thanks for investigating this.

[Cadmium]

These are nice IR photos. :-)

[photoni]

@OlDoinyo Beautiful photos, you made me want to use my 6x9 box with a Rollei infrared 120
(Hasselblad ELM weighs too much)

[Andrea B.]

Apologies for this very late comment, but it is quite useful and interesting to have these IR film examples along with the expert discussion. I fear this knowledge is getting lost these days.

[photoni]

On 11/8/2022 at 5:47 AM, OlDoinyo said:

There are as far as I know only two films currently available (other than old discontinued products) that have IR sensitivity: the Rollei IR400 and the Film Photography Project Infrapan.

 

For color infrared photography there is no longer anything in production,

for black and white photography there is only Streetpan 400 film, and Rollei which produces it in 135, 120 format, and 4x5 inch flat film

and which sees up to 800 nm and which with a Hoya R72 filter produces a black sky and a good Wood effect of light leaves.

 

there are other films that approach infrared, which see 720 / 750 /770 nm

such as Ilford SFX 200 and Rollei Superpan 200, Rollei Retro 80s; but I don't think they produce a good Wood effect