It’s CCD week on my photography how-to blog. In recent posts I’ve talked about taking a look at (older) digital cameras that had CCD sensors and today I wrap up the series with the Olympus EVOLT E-300 that was used to make today’s featured image—in infrared.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” – Will Roger
Several years ago at the FOTOfusion conference in Delray Beach. Florida I conducted a workshop that was called “Right in Your Own Backyard.” It’s a theme I have, somewhat beat to death on this blog with posts on that topic here and here—there’s probably even more! The images that I showed to the audiences attending the workshops—there were three— were based on a premise that you needn’t travel halfway around the world to make photographs when great photo ops are seemingly closer to home. I think that applies to infrared photography too.
How I Made this Infrared Photograph: I made this IR photograph during a time when I took a daily three-mile walk that was part of my inspiration for my “Right in Your Own Backyard” concept. This farm was less than two blocks from my front door. That idea grew out of an approach to an assignment to photograph landscapes I was given when a student at the Maryland Institute of Art and I decided I only wanted to photograph landscapes I could walk to from my house.
The image was made with an Olympus E-300 EVOLT and the 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital zoom kit lens that were part of the company’s original Four Thirds system. The exposure was 1/2 sec at f/5 at ISO 400 with a plus five stop exposure compensation. The IR filter used was a Hoya R-72 that only allows light in the high red area and infrared spectrum to strike the sensor. From 760nm to 860nm, the light transmission rate is 95%. This filter is part of my Infrared Filter Kit. You can watch a video about my IR filter kit on my YouTube channel.
I am going to guess the camera was tripod mounted because, I believe, the EVOLT family didn’t get IBIS until the ten-megapixel E-510 was introduced in 2007. The original JPEG file was converted to monochrome with Silver Efex, then the Glamour Glow filter from Color Efex was added to give it a slight bit of infrared glow—to make up for the fact that the leaves, which would be white in IR were long gone—with platinum toning from PhotoKit added to finish the image’s overall look.
The Olympus E-300 EVOLT
Introduced in 2004, the Olympus E-300 aka EVOLT in North America was the company’s second Four Thirds System DSLR. The camera used an eight-megapixel (17.3 x 13mm) Kodak KAF-8300CE FFT-CCD sensor that is now beloved by shooters of older digital cameras because they believe it produces the most filmic look. Read what Snappiness has to say about all this in his YouTube video CCD is the New Film/
The E-300 body had a metal chassis that was covered with an ABS skin and there was a metal area on the left top of the camera that contained the onboard flash. Instead of a prism, the camera had a Porro Finder that used four mirrors with a sideways swinging mirror. In 2006, the camera was replaced by the 7.4-megapixel Olympus E-330, a similar model but with added live preview. The E-330 also has the ability to digitally zoom in 10X before taking a picture, making for more precise manual focusing.
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 G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
Used copies of my book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography are currently available from Amazon starting at $33, as I write this. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and new copies are available from Amazon for $11.46 with used copies starting at less than eight bucks, which is a heckuva deal