Infrared photography can be a way to capture a unique view of the world and has always been a favorite of mine. It can be so cool to have your camera capture something that is invisible to the eye and gives you such a unique new view on our world. For those of you who don’t know what Infrared photography is it is a photo technique where the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light.

What this does is cause things like leaves to reflect a lot of light and become almost white. Usually you will use a infrared filter on the camera. This way the infrared light pass will pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum. You can create infrared images by using infrared film or with digital images and some tweaks to your camera.

Infrared Sky

We have written a bunch of articles on infrared photography in the past and wanted to share a few quick tips and also some past articles links to get you going with Infrared photography.

  • First experiment and get the right filter for the look you are going for. A deep black and white infrared filter (830nm) will allow the least amount of light to reach the sensor, creating black-and-white infrared images with good contrast.
    Or a common red #25 filter will do a good job blocking out most visible light and is a little easier to work with. See a full list of filters on the article “How to capture infrared photos” below.
  • Remember to manually focus. Auto focus won’t work since your lens is not calibrated for infrared light. Manually focus and use the red marker that most lenses have on them for infrared photography to adjust the focus.
  • Test out shooting in different lighting conditions. In order to really get the hang of infrared photography you need to do a lot of testing and see what the results are. This is one type of photography that you really need to get out and do in order to master. Have fun and shoot a lot!
  • For a great book on digital infrared photography check out Deborah Sandidge’s book.


    • Some past article on infrared photography:

    Infrared photography – 16 amazing shots

    How to capture infrared photos

    Intro to Digital Infrared Photography

    Shooting Digital Infrared Photos

    How to create a blue sky with your infrared image

    If you have some great infrared photos please share them! Head on over to our Facebook page and share an image, everyone would love to see it. http://www.facebook.com/digitalphotobuzz

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