A couple of months ago I sold my beloved Hasselblad XpanII to free up some cash so I could upgrade my Canon 20D to a Canon 5DMKII. However I kept my old 20D (partly as I have a few good EF-S lenses and partly because of the extra reach the 20D’s 1.6 crop factor offers). In fact I logged onto Ebay and bought myself another Canon 20D body for just a few hundred dollars!
My idea with this purchase was to convert the new 20D body to a dedicated infrared camera (keeping the original as a normal back-up camera). So, the day after I received my 20D I sent it over to the good guys at Life Pixel Infrared Conversion Services in Mukilteo, WA. I had a ‘Standard IR’ conversion done to the camera, but you also have the option of ‘Enhanced Color IR’ or ‘Deep BW IR’ conversions.
There are other companies offering infrared conversions, but Lifepixel seemed like the best choice to me. They offer a great turn-around service – I had my camera back within 10 days (and that’s between Australia and the US) and they ship from the US to all over the world.
I have been pleased with the results and have had a lot of fun shooting with the converted infrared camera. One obvious advantage of converting your camera is that your exposure times are not slowed right down as they are when you use a infrared filter in front of the lens. This allows you to shoot hand-held in many situations and opens up creative possibilities. Moreover, when you place an infrared filter in front of your lens you can’t really see to compose and focus, making it a lot more difficult and time consuming to make each shot.
The shot included with this post (click the image above to view the large version) was shot at the very end of day and then converted from the reddish infrared RAW file to a pure, high contrast black and white image.
For this particular image I like the (implied) repetition of the power poles and the strong silhouetted graphic elements juxtaposed against a very soft graduated evening sky.
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Fri, Jul 17, 2009
Gear