First off, sorry there was no Friday image this week. With everything else I had on, I just couldn’t fit it in. One of the things I was doing was visiting Filey on the East Coast of England with a friend. We didn’t have great weather but we did manage to capture some interesting shots.
One of the things I was trying out was some Infrared photography but not with my converted camera (although I did use that later). Instead I was experimenting with a 720nm Infrared filter on my Olympus EM5. This was to collect new material for a presentation and forthcoming book about Infrared photography.
Whilst some people will tell you that you can’t shoot infrared with a filter on a modern camera, it’s not true, it’s just that the exposures are quite long. The example you see above was a 36 second exposure at f/7.1 and ISO200. This may seem very long, but look at the positives. If you are wanting to do ultra long exposure black and white photography, a £10 Infrared filter from eBay is much cheaper than a 10 stop ND filter. The IR filter will also give you a much longer exposure in the middle of the day.
For those of you wondering what it looked like prior to conversion in Silver Efex Pro, here it is again. I will also point out that I have set a white balance in the RAW conversion as the image is blood read otherwise.
Having posted this yesterday I just checked on Amazon to see how much a recognised brand IR filter was and it was £26 for a 52mm Hoya. Here is the link for any one who is interested http://amzn.to/1eBy6Fg
The Lightweight Photographer 
I have a B+W IR filter that only seems to make trees look sharper…. none of the effect I was expecting….. it is almost clear…
I think you may have the UV and IR blocking filter. This will filter out the IR light and hence why it makes some subjects sharper. You can get cameras converted to Infrared but rather than have an IR filter placed over the sensor a clear glass/quartz filter is used. This makes the camera sensative to both IR and visible light. You can then use a filter such as the one you mention to filter out the IR light and make the camera a traditional camera. Alternatively you can use an IR filter that blocks visible light and converts your camera into a true IR camera.
If you are interested in trying out IR you need a 720nm filter. I just looked one up on amazon and posted the link to the blog. Here is is again http://amzn.to/1eBy6Fg
Very nice and short but yet informative post about infrared filters. Indeed nd’s cost much more than infrareds. If i get hold of an infrared filter ever, will give it a try. Thanks for the information.
Thanks for the positive feedback. The IR filters are much easier to get hold of than people think. I bought a really cheap one on eBay from China for GBP10 but I just checked on Amazon and you can buy a Hoya for around £26 http://amzn.to/1eBy6Fg