Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I’ve often said, and I think that it’s worth repeating that Zion National Park is one of the best places that I’ve found, so far anyway, to make infrared photographs. I have many great memories of shooting there with my wife Mary as part of a SmugMug event on one of my birthdays.
Zion is huge. The 229-square-mile park is located near Springdale, Utah and is a pleasant drive from Denver, The lowest elevation is 3,666 feet at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 feet at Horse Ranch Mountain. One of the park’s most prominent feature is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to a half-mile deep, cut through by the North Fork of the Virgin River.
How I Made this Shot: Even a simple path like this, I think, makes a more interesting photograph than if I had photographed it using visible light in color or even in black and white Infrared. This original RAW file was captured using a Canon EOS 50D that was converted to infrared capture by LifePixel using their Standard IR (720nm) filter. The lens used was the now-discontinued Tamron 11-18mm f/4-5.6 with an exposure of 1/160 and f/14 and ISO 400. The RAW file was opened in Photoshop and converted to black and white using Silver Efex. It was then platinum toned using Pixel Genius’ now free PhotoKit2, a plug-in that I consider indispensable for my day-to-day imaging. Hint: It does more than just toning.
I’ve found that Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they’ve done most of the conversions for some of my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
My book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography is available from Amazon with new copies available for $50.90 and used copies selling for around three bucks as I write this. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon new for $11.46 with used copies starting around four bucks.