Infrared Shooting in a Japanese Garden

I almost forgot to share this to this .com of mine. Last March I attended a two-day landscape class in Caliraya, Laguna. One of our activities was infrared shooting in a Japanese Garden just near our place of stay. We arrived before lunch, ate some snacks and fired away under the intense heat of the sun at around noon.

Our teacher taught us how to go with infrared shots. First thing you must do is to set a custom white balance from shooting a wole frame of foiliage (grass). Others might just go easy by setting the white balance to tungsten, but from the activity I can say that setting the white balance based on the foiliage gives a picture that is easier to process. My RAW files looked like these instead of a whole bloody red unprocessed picture (if a white balance of tungsten was used).

The second point is to always compose and lock focus before attaching the screw-in Hoya R72 Filter. Third, after a shot review it for overexposed areas so that you can estimate how long the exposure would be. So it’s compose, screw the filter, shoot, review, and if the exposure isn’t right, shoot again.

Getting the right exposure is tough …also to the skin. LOL

I realized some things from our activity. One is that doing landscape shots is really challenging. Even if you’re using a wide angle lens that covers a lot of area, the important task is to shoot without having to crop. Another thing is that you’re still limited to how your tripod can be positioned or assembled on the area, given the limited time to shoot. My Benro tripod gave me calloused hands after my landscape class…assembling it was on this pull and twist system, takes some muscles to do that! Last thing is that having sunblock is important or atleast an umbrella. It was so darn hot that day, I got barbecued and went home 2-3 shades darker.

At the end of our infrared shooting in that Japanese garden, everybody can just wish they had a converted IR camera, but Mr. Larrios said if you have a converted IR camera and would still want to have those long exposure effects like moving clouds, it would be shooting with stacked filters. I heard from a friend recently that I can already buy a converted Canon EOS 1000d for infrared body at a price almost the same as my ultra wide angle lens. In months time I’m still thinking of buying another lens…probably an (L) lens, but then if I get serious with landscape and infrared, why not? :p I like the challenge in doing landscape, I also love the fact that I use it as a reason to get away

Mr. Larrios likes this shot because of the stone serving as the foreground.

During the night after the activity, we processed our shots for some false color infrared look. Processing wasn’t only by swapping the Red and Blue Channels through Adobe Photoshop. There was the use of warming filters, and color replacement tools (which was fun because it’s like painting by numbers). Well, there’s still a lot of improving to do by reading articles and books. Sometimes I wished i started shooting at a younger age…but then there’s still lots of time for learning.