7 Images Tagged IR, Infrared

INFRARED


opposite sides by camil tulcan

backwater, by Licht

searching for a star by Licht

Crane Creek HDR IR by Josh Sommers

Burnside Bridge in IR by eyeof wally

Field O by zachstern

One, Two, Three... by ekillian

One millionth of a millimeter. That is what a nanometer is. It is not a measurement for baking or carpentry. Not even really for machinists or mechanics. Rather, it is most commonly used to describe the wavelength of light. When we measure the wave length of what we can see, with our naked eye, the light is in the 400 to 700 nm range. But what about the rest. I have heard it said that we only use a small percentage of our actual brain power. Did you know that an incandescent light bulb only gives off about 10% of their energy as visible light? The rest is mostly infrared, a good explanation of why the fluorescent bulbs are so much more efficient. Since the most common source for light is thermal, it is interesting to note that we probably have not seen most of the world. Only the part that falls in the visible spectrum. What if you shift the spectrum?

If you can remember ROY G BIV you can get that bonus question on your high school physics test. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet. That is the visible spectrum. But what comes before Red or after Violet? Infrared means below red. We can detect those wave lengths and try to represent them. In photography we really mean, near infrared. the far infrared part is thermal imaging. For example, our bodies put off infrared in the 10nm range. So to work with the near infrared, we have to filter out the visible. That means we need to filter in the 700 to 900nm range. You also need film or a digital sensor that can record that wave length. Most digital cameras today come with an infrared filter built in since the infrared spectrum usually represents in the images as noise. Some of the older digital cameras did not filter well, they get used for infrared photographry with a visible light filter applied over them. There is a downside to that, it means that you cannot compose the image with the filter on it. To beat that problem there are companies out there now that will take your current camera and remove the infrared filter install a visible light filter right over the imaging element. With a digital SLR, that means you can compose the image as you normally would, but instead you would record the near infrared spectrum.

Talk about other worlds. It is right here, now. You can record this other world. So of course, Flicker is full of infrared images. And some are outstanding. Remember, when you take a picture, you are recording the reflected light, so these images are recordings of the reflected near infrared light. Not what the objects in them are producing, that is the far infrared spectrum. If you see a person, it is the reflection of the infrared light off of them. Same for trees, and clouds and water. Some things do better for this then other. As you can see, some things get moreinteresting then you could have imagined. It also means longer image exposure times, and still objects work best. But sometimes the movement can really make an image interesting.