All images on this website are © copyright 2004 Gary & Anna Ayton. Contact me if you want prints from the originals.

• my digital infrared photos
• infra-red photography general notes
• see also ultraviolet photography

Australian Eucalypt tree and farm land near Melbourne - if you would like to see how this image evolved, look here

Canon 1DMIII with 21mm Olympus OM lens and R72 filter, ISO 400, 16secs - for the observant, I had taken this IR scene a couple of years ago with my Olympus C8080 during Winter, see below. This time its Summer and an impending cold front on its way to offer relief to 37degC temperatures. The scene and tree had just fallen into shade cast from the setting sun going behind the in-coming cloud.

The above photo was taken a few of minutes prior to the first photo and was a 30sec exposure at ISO 100 with scene lit by the setting sun. It has not been tinted as for the first one and offers a different ambience.

Here are some of my earlier infra-red photos with the Oly C8080WZ:

technical note: these were taken with Hoya R72 filter with exposures 2-15sec and post-processed in Photoshop.

click to view an enlarged image

Split Point lighthouse, Airey's Inlet, Victoria
Oil refinery, Williamstown, Victoria see also monochromes	Historic time ball tower - ball used allow shipmasters to correct their chronometers from 1852 to 1926, and an anchor used for convict prisoner hulk ships anchored off Williamstown c1820, all this at the site of the 1st telegraph in the Southern Hemisphere in 1854, at the height of the Victorian gold rush.
St Kilda Pier, Melbourne	Faster, faster... statue in Sth Melbourne
Cart & gate	Water wheel
western Melbourne scene - an unusual Australian scene!	Winter on a Gisborne creek near Melbourne
classical Australian scene - gum tree (Eucalyptus) on the Keilor plains near Melbourne, Winter	Melbourne CBD
typical Australian surf fishing scene - note the digital "grain" from pushing ISO over 400 using Adobe RAW development	Beach at Pickininnie Ponds - near the world-renown freshwater snorkelling and diving site in Sth Australia

Olympus C8080 digital camera in infra-red photography:

• the Olympus C8080WZ, like all digital cameras the sensor is sensitive to infrared light but an IR-blocking filter is embedded which substantially decreases its sensitivity to IR light
• despite this, IR photography is possible using a IR filter such as the Hoya R72, which appears almost black and makes composition & focusing very difficult in dim light but possible in sunlight or even on cloudy days.
• interestingly, at wide angle the C8080 showed some vignetting with the 58mm Hoya R72 filter which is not evident on normal photos using other 58mm filters.
• for outdoor photography:
  • just put the Hoya R72 on,  place the camera on a tripod, set exposure - under-expose by 1-2 stops to ensure red channel does not get over-exposed by the camera's default exposure analysis, consider setting self-timer to minimise camera shake, compose after pressing shutter half-down so that you can visualise the scene & set the focus and take the photo.
  • the exposures needed are ISO 50, f/2.4, 1.5-3secs for bright sunlight (~5secs on cloudy days) 
  • check that the focus is set right as sometimes with the dark image, the AF is fooled.
  • the long exposures mean a tripod is mandatory & one should consider avoiding moving objects such as grass, trees on windy days unless the blurred result is a desired feature.
  • you will need to process the images in Photoshop or similar editing program to select only the red channel then adjust the histogram levels to improve the contrast & brightness, then use the Unsharp filter to sharpen the final image.
  • I strongly suggest you take the photo in RAW mode and take a flat frame to fix the vignetting problems if using wide angle
    • see infrared photography with the Olympus C8080 - digital processing
• for electronic flash photography:
  • this is a lot more difficult as the dim interior lights make it almost impossible to compose & focus, forcing you to use a smaller aperture to have a better chance of being in focus, but the drastic reduction in the effective guide number of the flash (my Metz 45CL-4 which normally has a GN of 45m at 100ISO, effectively has a GN of approx. 2 using the Hoya R72 filter!) means the flash must be placed very close to the subject!
  • I think that you may need to try a IR flash gun (Sony makes one for their nightshot mode cameras, but not sure if you can get it to work with the Oly) or a very powerful flash such as GN 60m, and set the Oly to 400ISO.
  • underexposure at 400ISO creates a very grainy image which may be useful