Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same. —Helen Keller
The Rocky Mountain Columbine (Columbine Aquilegia caerulea) is the state flower of Colorado and is sometimes known as “granny bonnets” because of its shape. The flower was originally discovered in 1820 on Pike’s Peak by mountain climber Edwin James.
Around the world, there are 70 species of columbine flowers that can be found and one-third of them are native to North America. Columbines bloom in pastel shades of violet, red, yellow, white and pale blue (as in the species name caerulea); commonly the flowers are bicolored with the sepals a different shade than the petals. Like most flowers, they are not typically photographed in black and white. So I decided, why not use infrared!
How I made this photo: I photographed this columbine in a friend’s front yard using a Canon EOS 50D that had been converted to infrared-only photography by LifePixel using their Standard IR filter (720nm.) The lens used was an EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens with an exposure of 1/200 sec at f/5 and ISO 400.
A Few Suggestions
If you’ve been thinking abut giving infrared photography a try and would prefer to use a converted camera because of the ability to shoot images handheld, consider having one of your old cameras that’s just sitting around collecting dust converted by LifePixel or any of the many other companies that offer this service. You can go on eBay or Craig’s List and find a nice used (and cheap) SLR that uses the same lenses as the rest of your system. Using an older camera is not a drawback if you shoot in RAW. I purchased a lightly used Panasonic Lumix GX1 from from Roberts Camera and had LifePixel convert it using their Hyper Color conversion.
For some reasons on why I shoot infrared and why you might want to give it a try, read my post Getting a Fresh Start with Infrared.
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 of 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 used from Amazon for $36.20 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 a little more than three bucks, which is a heckuva deal.