Fun wth Infrared

Infrared photography has been on my list of things to do for a little while and this week the correct celestial alignment presented itself. Basically I picked up some Ilford SFX 200 from a bargain bin of expired film thinking I'd try something new. I thought it was just another black and white film but it turns out this one is a little different in that it's sensitive to infrared light.

So I asked the friendly photography store people what I needed to use it and they found me a relatively cheap ($A40) 52mm Hoya R72 filter. I was intending to use this film in my AE-1 Program and this size fits most of my FD lenses. It's also significantly cheaper than the 58mm R72 and fits the [f=]50mm EF lens for my EOS cameras.

And in fact, that's the only lens I've tried out with this filter so far since it's much easier to whack it on my 350D and play around with exposures on a digital camera than to shoot a roll of film and hope that I got something right. Happily the 350D's sensor is also sensitive to IR light and it doesn't get filtered out on the way through.

The filter seems opaque just to look at and once on the camera it makes the viewfinder completely black, unless you point it at the sun (with some leaves in the way for a nice effect), like so (f/4, 1/125):



With no sun in the frame things are trickier as you really can't see what you're shooting, but I seem to be able to guess OK. When I shoot the film I'll most likely use a tripod, frame the shot with the filter off and only put the filter on for the actual exposure. Meanwhile, the near-instant feedback on the digital camera, not to mention the inexpensive medium of compact flash, makes experimenting easy. Here's another experiment without the sun in the frame, shot at f/1.8, 1/40 (manual mode is what you want, since the camera's metering is affected by the filter).



Obviously these shots are very red (except for the purple trees!), whereas the film will be black and white, but I kinda like it. Focus is another issue to deal with when shooting infrared, presumably because light at infrared wavelengths bends differently to visible light, making the focal point different. In practice the 350D's autofocus still worked sufficiently well for my experiments, but I'll be making use of the helpful red dots on my FD lenses when I try the film...

Focus screen blues (continued)

I've been shooting for a while now with a less-than-optimal focus screen in my 350D. As previously mentioned, I had installed an aftermarket split-circle screen in the hope of a better manual focus setup but alas just ended up with something that wouldn't give me the correct focus and was scratched and dirty to boot (my fault).

Well tonight I got well sick of it - it was so bad I was favouring my film bodies over the digital and only using the 350D for throwaway shots, because I could barely bring myself to look through its viewfinder. This was enough to give me the courage to put my factory screen back in. I had attempted this previously (when I first put the split-circle in, actually) but couldn't get the AF points to line up. Tonight, no such problem, thankfully. I did leave out the thin copper shim that was originally in the camera, but things look OK, so I'm going with what I have now.

I'd still love a split-circle, but the one I tried did get a little dark at narrower apertures so I think I'll stick with the factory screen in my 350D and maybe try something else (a different brand, methinks) if and when I finally get something better (my wishlist goes like this: 500D, 7D, 5D... ;)

Death to Fungus

Tonight, cruising eBay for lenses, as I am wont to do, I came across a Canon 28-135mm IS f/3.5-5.6 USM lens (IS: Image Stabiliser and USM: Ultra-Sonic Motor, ie. quiet auto-focus). I already have the similar 28-105mm USM (no IS) lens, but would love the extra reach and IS would be handy. So far it's sitting on $22.50 with three days to go. Why? In a word - fungus. That's right, there's stuff growing inside the lens. Damn.

But it got me thinking about how I might go about cleaning it up myself (or how much it might cost to get it done professionally and whether that would be worth it - short answer is "probably", but hard to tell sight-unseen). Which got me thinking about the old 70-210mm f/4 I have, which had a bit of an infection itself, and I did a little reading...

This lens came with the EOS 650 that I bought not so long ago as my second film body (after the 3000N). I bought it mostly for the lenses (although I've been using the body too) - the 70-210mm and a 35-105mm and I think they're both out of the original EF lineup. Certainly they have the AF motor noise to prove it! Anyway, the 70-210mm had a little fungus on the inside (where else?) of the front element, and I was suitably terrified of actually opening a lens myself, but the three little Phillips-head were just too tempting. After, I told myself, I don't use this lens much, if at all, and if I kill it dead (which I thought unlikely), I can deal.

So, three screws out and the front element can be removed without too much trouble. I want to go easy on the glass so I try a little alcohol spray and a blower but the fungus won't budge. I try an experimental nudge with my thumbnail (which I keep long for playing guitar) and end up smearing it a little. Ick. OK, so my earlier reading suggested that vinegar (of the white spirit kind, not the apple cider or red wine kind!) was a good tool for this job... and it is. I apply some with a cotton-bud and the fungus basically dissolves. I blot it clean with a lens-cleaning cloth and things look good. This being a push-pull zoom, I can also get to the rear element easily and clean that up too. Make sure everything is dry, put the front element back on and screw it up. Done.

And the result? Well, it looks clean enough although I'll know better when I do some comparison shots against its previous performance. Happily, the lens with the fungus was the easiest one to pull apart, out of my collection. The others look a little more daunting... Meanwhile, I think I'll bid on this 28-135mm and see if I can't somehow clean it up. If I can get it cheap it may even be worth having it professionally cleaned. :)

I love my AE-1 Program (or, primes rock)

So I ran a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 through my AE-1 Program. I wasn't expecting too much from this film - it was really a test roll for my recent FD lens acquisitions. And when I saw the prints today, the first few shots were out of focus or shaken so I was a little sad. Then I had a chance to look through the rest and was pleasantly surprised.

One of the most interesting shots was with the 24mm Sigma. I had managed to get the lens slightly "cross-threaded" on the mount and I couldn't get it to focus - I thought I'd broken it somehow but took the shot anyway, of the grand old Exhibition Building in Melbourne, and it turned out a look like those tilt-shift pictures you see (makes sense, I guess). Then I figured out what I'd done, mounted the lens properly and got a beautiful, focussed shot - amazing blue sky and brushed clouds, almost like an HDR (high dynamic range) digital image. Like so:





Next I tried the Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror lens. I pointed it at the little tower on top of the dome and got a beautifully sharp of something that was only a tiny detail in the frame from the 24mm lens. The background was that bright blue sky, so there were no "donuts" in the background "bokeh" that are a drawback with the mirror lens design. I also shot some long-range "portraits", both against a background of trees (yielding donuts) and a blank wall. So long as I managed to get the subject in focus, they were wonderfully sharp. The donuts are a little trippy but I think are an interesting effect if used tastefully.





Finally I shot some portraits with the 135mm f/3.5 (pretty close equivalent to the 85mm I love using so much on the 350D, focal length-wise, anyway). Again, nice and sharp with beautiful colours.

I'm tempted to say this is the roll of colour film that I've been happiest with, but that wouldn't be quite true, having looked back at some of the Fuji 400H and Velvia 100 I shot at the Melbourne Zoo on the EOS 50. Still, I'm really glad I bought the AE-1 Program and I have new respect for Kodak Ultramax 400.

Focus screen blues

A while back I ordered a split-circle focus screen for my 350D. (I won't mention the vendor by name at this point because my issue is still unresolved and I don't want to prejudge the result.) I was getting frustrated with a very hunt-happy autofocus system (especially in low light) and was finding the manual focus option to be very difficult with the standard screen. Losing a lot of shots that I was sure I could get if I could only _see_!

The screen arrived a couple of weeks back and I procrastinated about putting it in, because the screens are very easily scratched and/or dirtied and next to impossible to clean. Now I'm wishing I had just left well-enough alone.

Long story short[er], the screen went in fine. But the viewfinder focus was wrong, because I had put it in backwards (it's hard to tell, OK?). So I flipped it. And it was still out, but closer. So I put the copper shim back in (the one they said you didn't need). And it was worse. And so on and so forth, taking the screen out a lot, having trouble placing it back in. And it got dirty. And scratched. And cleaning with isopropyl alcohol left a mark. And blah. I tried putting the original screen back, but couldn't get it to line up. At 2am I declared defeat, emailed the support address and went to bed for some fitful sleep.

I was so annoyed I didn't take _any_ cameras with me when I left the house today (well, except the one in my phone). As anyone who has seen me recently will know, this is highly unusual. I was that sad.

Support email came back and said I should try with the extra bits of sticky stuff to extend the shim. That made it worse. So I took out the shim. Better, but not right, and nowhere near good enough for manual focus (which was the point of this, remember?). I need to move the screen further back. Or make it thinner (tricky).

So, email to support again. I figure they'll either declare me incompetent, come up with some trick I haven't thought of (no, I'm not taking a scalpel to my camera!) or admit there's an issue and get me a screen that fits.

Hopefully I get some joy - I can see the potential of the split circle to really enhance my work and I can't wait to have a working one on my only digital body. Maybe shooting some film will cheer me up in the meantime...

eBay is eeeevil!

No shooting today, just a fair bit of eBay madness. I've augmented my FD collection by three.

First up, a 28mm f/2.8 prime made by Sigma, which should be nice for landscapes (and the inevitable posed group shots that people seem to force upon me from time to time). I would have preferred a Canon lens, but I'm willing to give this a shot.

Next we have the Canon 135mm f/3.5 which should suit me well as I like to do really close-up portrait shots. It's a little slower than I'd like, but I can't really complain since it's a 135mm lens. I find a little distance is useful from my people subjects so I can grab unposed shots before they realise they're being photographed and put on some awful pose face. I realise this sounds sneaky but it seems to be the only way to get the shots that I really like (which I will generally show people after the fact if I can). And often, the subjects really like them too. ;)

Lastly, moving toward the realms of the crazy, I also bought a Sigma mirror lens, with a focal length of... wait for it... 600mm! Now since I haven't won any lotteries recently there are obviously some drawbacks to this deal ('cause, you know, the Canon 600mm f/4L IS _would_ be preferable... *grin*). The mirror lens design means you get a fixed aperture (f/4 in this case) and not-so-nice bokeh in the form of little donuts if you happen to chose the "wrong" background. But... 600mm! On the upside, it's not as heavy or big as you might think.

The grand total for all this manual-focus mayhem? Around $A200. Now I just have to wait for it to show up... Looks like I'm getting a little carried away with this FD thing... (not to mention the film thing!)

Band in a boat

Had a fun afternoon with some friends of mine, known to fans as John Flanagan and the Begin Agains (http://www.myspace.com/johnflanagansings). John asked for someone to help out on a photo shoot - holding a reflector or whatever. Of course I volunteered as I hadn't seen these guys in ages and... well, it was a photo shoot, so a great chance to observe a professional in action.

Turned out the light was such that a reflector wasn't needed, so I was free to shoot alongside the "real" photographer, mirroring the shots she took on her Mamiya and doing "behind the scenes" type stuff too. And I had a ball - shot mostly B&W film - I thought the 1600 ISO I had loaded up in the EOS 5 would be excessive but I think it worked well, especially since the EOS 5 will do shutter speeds up to 1/8000 (it didn't blink at me once). Also shot some slides (50 ISO Velvia!) and a bunch of frames on the 350D. Oh, and a bit of AE-1P action for good measure to finish up a roll.

The locations were great - an old convent (where I had wandered earlier with the AE-1P) and later on down by the river, with the band in a rowboat! The day's highlight was the band floating by looking somewhat regal, John standing up in the back with his banjo. Kudos to the photographer for that particular bit of vision and planning - the boating theme really fit the old-timey/bluegrass feel of the band and putting the banjo in the boat was just gold. And thanks for letting me shoot too - looking forward to getting that film processed.