1
Frame up your
shot on a tripod
Your camera is going to need
a very long exposure (probably between five
and ten minutes) to receive enough infrared
light for a well-exposed image, so setting it
up on a tripod is a must. This is the time to
frame up to achieve the composition you
want and focus on your focal point: the
viewfinder on a DSLR will be totally
black when you attach the IR filter.2
Attach your IR filter
to your camera
Put your camera into its manual
focus mode to lock it off and carefully screw
in the infrared filter, being careful not to
knock the zoom or focus rings on the lens.
Now go into your camera’s Manual mode
dial in an ISO of 1,600, and open up the
aperture to its widest value. Make sure
you’re shooting raw and finally set
the shutter speed to Bulb mode.3
Expose for
several minutes
Plug in your shutter release
cable and set a timer on your phone for
five minutes. Start the timer, then lock the
shutter release button in place until your
timer finishes. Check the resulting image:
if it’s too dark increase the timer value; if
it’s too bright, decrease the time or lower
the ISO a little. Take another shot until
the exposure looks good.16 DIGITAL CAMERA^ MARCH 2020 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
Edit the shot in Photoshop
Open up your raw image in Photoshop, and you’ll see it’s taken
in the Camera Raw plugin, where you have access to all of that
extra exposure data. The image will be a bright magenta colour, so is only suitable for black and white,
but the result will be much higher in contrast than any regular shot. The first thing you need to do is set
Saturation to -100 to make it mono. Now boost Clarity to +50 and adjust Exposure until the overall
brightness looks good. Tweak Highlights, Shadows, White and Blacks to get the contrast you like,
then go to the Detail Panel and set Luminance Noise Reduction to 20 to remove image noise.Block the eyepiece
If you’re shooting on a DSLR, you’ll want
to stop light coming in through the
viewfinder during your long exposure,
as this can create strange flares to appear
in your image. Many cameras have a
plastic viewfinder blocker on the strap.
Others, like Nikon’s D810 and D
cameras, have one built-in.
If you’re shooting on a mirrorless
camera, then you don’t need to worry
about this problem: the viewfinder
is electronic, not optical.