The sun has been out all week here which can only mean one thing – it’s about to rain. That means that I need to get out with one of my infrared cameras before it starts. The weather is perfect for infrared photography. Bright sun, blue sky, and a huge amount of contrast in the landscape.
Traditional landscape photography (outside of the start and end of day) will look dreadful in these conditions but not so infrared. It’s conditions like these that convinced me to get my first digital infrared conversion done back in 2012. That was a Panasonic GX1, but I soon followed it with an Olympus EM5 and more recently Fuji XT2.
Having a digital infrared camera body in my camera bag allows me to carry on shooting in conditions that challenge traditional photography. And having said all of this, I haven’t found any time this week to get out with a camera. I’ve had my head down designing the print edition of my new Luminosity Masking book.
To compensate for this, I’ve found myself releasing a YouTube video on the subject and publishing an article about channel swapping in Photoshop. This has also allowed me to reprocess some of my older Infrared shots like this one.
It’s taken with a Panasonic GX1 which was converted to shoot infrared using a 720nm filter. The lens for this shot was the Olympus 9-18mm at 15mm. It was a handheld exposure of 1/40 second at f/8 and ISO160. After applying a white balance using the method described in my YouTube video, I did a red/blue channel swap (also demonstrated in the video).
For this image, I applied a custom black and white conversion using the Exposure X7 plugin. I love this plugin for processing black and white infrared photography. It has excellent control over film grain but it’s the Infrared glowing effect it creates that I really like.
I realise that not everyone likes the infrared effect but if you find yourself struggling to shoot landscapes in bright weather, it’s a great solution.
I hope you like the photo and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
I love it!
Thank you
Hi Robin,
Can I do the same infrared editing & channel swap using my Affinity Photo software, and if so, how do I actually do it ?
Many thanks,
Ian.
Yes, you can. Here’s the tutorial https://lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/infrared-channel-swap-affinity-photo/
Watch out for the White Balance if you are editing a RAW file though. It may be best to wait until you are in the Photo Persona to apply a White Balance Adjustment layer.
Hi Robin,
Thanks so much for the Affinity link. I’ll use it when I next go out to take some IR images.