IR metering with the D70

[PeteQ]

Alrighty, I just received my D70 back from service (whole 'nother story) and am ready to start dabbling in the world of IR photography. Just curious how you guys with the Lifepixel filter conversion work the exposure metering. Just some ballpark guidance to get going....

Do you meter for a normal exposure, +1, +2????? That kind of stuff... I know LP says about +1.3 but I was curious what the other Nikon guys are seeing.

[AndrewC]

Depends on your illumination. The camera is going to meter visible light, the sensor is going to pickup IR. When I converted my camera (which I might have problems with :( ) the first test shot I took was indoors under fluorescent. Way, way underexposed compared to the camera meter. Then tried outside in bright sun (lots of reflected IR) and it pretty much matched. Trust your histogram !

Andrew

[PeteQ]

Yeah, that's kind of what I have been seeing in my impromtu testing. I was just curious if anyone had any kind of rough gouge to start with....

Thanks!

[UK_IR]

Pete

The camera's meter will often get you in the ballpark but you need to monitor the histogram to make sure you don't blowout the highlights. On average I find with converted cameras that they need +1 compensation dialed in for most shots. I review the histogram for each image and adjust compensation as needed. Using a converted camera needs a lot of manual intervention to get the best image quality. I also recommend using a custom white balance to avoid blowing out the red channel. This isn't always apparant if you use AWB.

[PeteQ]

Thanks folks. What I had been noticing is that the meter "quality" shall we say, differs so much from indoor to out. Outdoor I dial in +1.5 compensation, meter, shoot and it seems pretty close to what I need to start with but indoors it's just a crapshoot....

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Try shooting with a flash indoors. You don't have the same issues you do with a normal exposure, I've found it's a lot easier using the flash, a lot more forgiving.

[PeteQ]

Thanks everyone!

Well, here's my first lame attempt at IR and channel swapping. I am really looking forward to playing around more with IR now that I got the 70 converted.

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Exposure looks good. You might want to boost the contrast as it looks a little on the flat side. Figures you'd get it right when all the clouds moved out of the area (grin).

Looking foward to see what you can do with it!

_/oe

[AndrewC]

Exposure indoors is so variable because of the different light sources. Tungsten lights have a lot of IR (feel the heat baby !) whereas fluorescents typically have next to none.