garden of zen

garden of zen II

so I finally got my hands on some sweet ilford black and white infrared film and went down to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens as the weather on Saturday was nothing short of summer. For those that are not familiar with infrared photography or film, it is pretty amazing. Us humans can not see the infrared spectrum because it resides on a wavelength between 700-900 nerdmeters (nanometers) so unless you’re the Predator monster, you are out of luck. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so to counter this, an infrared-passing filter has to be used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). Tiffen, Hoya sell these at moderately decent prices. The R72 is a good choice as it will turn your blue skies almost pitch black.

Now the really awesome thing about these films is a notable halation effect or glow often seen in the highlights. Why is that? well, depending on the type of Black and White IR film, the glow or blooming is caused by the absence of an anti-halation layer on the back side of the film. This results in a scattering or blooming around the highlights that would usually be absorbed by the anti-halation layer in conventional films, so its sort of like everything has a glowing white ora around it, especially the leaves. Kodak HIE film was notorious for having the best blooming results but unfortunately, Kodak discontinued this film about 5 years ago. Now there are three remaining brands that still sell B+W IR film: Ilford, Efke and Rollei. I hear the efke 820nm film is the closest to the Kodak HIE film but I have yet to test it. I wasn’t able to get my hands on the Efke, so the Ilford SFX200 film had to do but unfortunately is a tad lacking in the trademark blooming effect. sigh. Ah well, until next time.

mamiya 7ii
ilford sfx200 IR film
tiffen R72 IR filter