Today’s Video by Joe Farace
I’m often asked about my approach to shooting infrared photography—both film and digital. So I’ve put together the second of two ten-minute or so video explainers that together they might be called Getting Started in Infrared Photography. That was the original title of my book about infrared photography, so naturally the publisher decided to change it to something that wasn’t necessarily descriptive of its contents. Nevertheless, I really like the book and it’s currently available from Amazon for $41.99 with used copies starting around seventeen bucks as I write this. You can see Part I of this short video series here
But first, here are the links I refer to in the video:
- Life Pixels Infrared Filter Choices
- Life Pixel Infrared Conversion Costs
- How to Produce the Blue Sky Infrared Technique
- Exposure for Infrared Digital Photography; It’s Not Hard
A note about the video production: Unlike the Cars & Coffee videos produced with and by Cliff Lawson, I am responsible for everything involved in creating these film and photography-related videos from being the host, setting-up the gear, shooting the footage, knocking it all down and finally editing it together and posting on my YouTube channel.
The camera that was previously used for my YouTube videos was Canon’s EOS M6 Mark II with its EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM kit lens. I liked the idea of shooting a camera with an APS-C sized sensor but based on recent focus-related experiences with this camera, I switched to a Panasonic Lumix G9 for this video and the previous one. The sensor of the Lumix G9 is smaller that the M6 Mark II’s but the video quality somehow looks better to me, although this and the previous video is not without it’s Panasonic-related AF quirks. The lens used was an Olympus 25mm f/1.8 (50mm equivalent) with the camera perched upon my green Manfrotto tripod
I’m often asked how I shoot these videos; here’s the camera settings used for this one, not that I am the guy to get any kind of video advice from:
- 1920×1080, 30P
- 420/8bit
- 20Mbps
Audio is from a Rode VideoMic shotgun mic that was a gift from Barry Staver; it’s mounted on the G9’s hot shoe and powered by a 9V Duracell battery. Most of the lighting is provided by daylight coming from two large windows in my living room but a NEO 2 LED Camera Light was added at camera left to brighten the shadows. The footage is edited with a seven year-old copy of iMovie on an old (in computer years) 27-inch 5K iMac and then uploaded to YouTube.
What’s Next?: I am open to suggestions for the topic on my next video. Click CONTACT and tell me what you would like to see or if you have questions about film or digital photography.
I’ve found that Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they’ve done most of the conversions for my Canon DSLRs and all my Panasonic Lumix 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 used copies selling for $41.99 or used for around seventeen bucks as I write this. My other book, Creative Digital Monochrome Effects, has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon for $19.40 with used copies starting at around two bucks!