A vacation of vistas

Moraine Lake near Lake Louise Alberta

This post is very late but better late than never I guess. Last summer I took a road trip from Saskatoon to Victoria with stops along the way and visiting friends and family, nearly 4000km (~2500mi) round trip. I managed to get some photos that I really liked, some in infrared using my converted 10D and some using my 5D MK II.

My first stop between here and Victoria was in Banff, actually Two Jack Lake to be more precise which is across the highway from Banff. I met up with a few friends there and camped for a few days with them. Below is a photo that is pretty much from the edge of my campsite, despite being only 3 degrees Celsius the one night it was great waking up to this incredible view.

Two Jack Lake, Alberta

Since we were right across the highway from Banff we did a few day trips into town, luckily my friends were very tolerant of my photo taking addiction and were ok waiting around here and there while I happily snapped away.

We did another day trip to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake the latter being the lake that used to grace the back of the Canadian $20 bill.





Almost all of the photos I took on my trip are actually stitched composites of multiple photos, with the 5D this lead to some incredibly large photos, in the neighborhood of 150 Mega Pixels. The shot below shows a 100% crop of the water and you can actually make out the people in the canoe!

I didn't wind up taking many more photos as I moved on to Vernon BC and finally Victoria, spent more time visiting and really after the stunning scenery around Banff most of the other locations paled in comparison. I did stop in Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller on my way back.

That's it for this post, hopefully more to follow in the coming weeks as I try to catch up.

Surreal Infrared

Near Petrofka bridge on the way to Blaine Lake Saskatchewan

A little while back I snuck away for the day, grabbed my newly IR converted 10D, and hit the road with a friend to shoot some of cool views my Saskatchewan backyard has to offer. In my last post I talked mainly about the neat little pinhole camera I also took along but since I hadn't finished editing my IR shots I split it up into two posts. This is the second one.

For those who live elsewhere and aren't familiar with Saskatchewan, it's in a word ... huge. You could fit the entire UK within the province of Saskatchewan... twice over... and then some. Needless to say I've lived here all of my 30+ years and still have lots of different places I want to check out. One of those places I was able to check off my list during this trip, that was Saskatchewan's biggest tree (allegedly) but we'll get to that in a bit.

First and primary stop was the crooked trees, a very popular off-the-beaten-path attraction.

The Crooked Trees aka The Crooked Bush aka The Crooked Trees of Alticane

I encourage everyone that lives in or is travelling through Saskatchewan to try and visit these at some point. With how surreal they look under normal conditions I knew that as soon as I had a chance I was going to get some infrared photos of them. The results look like a fairytale.

If you stare long enough the tree on the right looks like a person

 

My good friend and flip-flop destroyer (thanks for driving Jackie!)

Just before we got to the crooked trees we had to stop in Hafford SK which is on the way. My friend's flipflop had broken so we were hoping to find a suitable replacement for her at the general store. The store had a "back in 10 minutes" sign up so we stopped by The Sword And Chalice restaurant next door, a very unique little restaurant with a reputation for good food of epic proportions. I suggest making a day trip of it and stopping by for lunch. Unfortunately while Hafford may have aweome Ukrainian street signs and a restaurant that serves a 16lb burger they do not sell flipflops. The search continued.

Crooked Trees directions (from Saskatoon): Head out highway 16, go past Langham and Borden, at Radisson turn north onto highway 340. Follow 340 until you reach Hafford, you'll know it by the street signs that are in both English and Ukrainian. Exit Hafford westbound on highway 40, at "Flint Road" turn right, there should also be a sign saying "Crooked Bush". Drive 16.5km north (seriously make note of your odometer) then turn right and go 2.5km east (there is a very tiny white sign at this turn). 

Initially our trip was only supposed to be the crooked trees but my friend hadn't seen the half buried trucks or Saskatchewan's biggest tree so we decided to keep exploring. Heading back on highway 40 we drove through Hafford and kept going to Blaine Lake, a town which I might add sells some very sturdy and reasonably priced flip-flops. With the footware situation fixed we exited Blaine Lake heading south on highway 12. Look for a sign on your left that says "Doukhobor Caves" and turn there onto Tree Road. You still have to drive for a bit but there are signs that will guide you, eventually you'll come upon this:

Saskatchewan's Biggest Tree Near Blaine Lake SK

I really kicked myself after for not getting one shot with someone or something in the frame to give a sense of scale. The circumference of the tree is ~5m (just over 16ft for you Americans) and it is apparently a cottonwood/balsam poplar hybrid. Earlier I referred to it as Saskatchewan's biggest tree with allegedly in brackets, that's because we have a boatload of trees and some pretty remote areas. Until someone contests the title though this is Saskatchewan's largest tree. 

In all honesty we actually drove right past Tree Road and wound up stopping at the Petrofka Bridge Orchard to ask directions. We came out with directions, picked carrots, jams etc. I highly recommend stopping in, whether its for directions or not. We also ran into some people that we'd ran into earlier at the crooked trees, for such a huge province its amazing how small it can get some days.

Back on highway 12 heading south, just after you cross the North Saskatchewan River you'll find the Blacktop Diner/Olive Tree Restaurant which is home to the half buried trucks. There should be a more grandiose name for them but there isn't. 

 Blacktop Diner by day, authentic Greek restaurant Olive Tree by night

I'd shot these trucks in the past but thought they might look pretty cool in infrared.

They also had a cool non-buried truck on their property. 

This trip proved to be one of my only summer getaways this vacation but it was definitely one of the highlights of my summer. If you're in the area be sure to check some of them out.

If you'd like to see all the shots from this trip and more of my Saskatchewan Scenes you can view them here.

Canon 10D Infrared Conversion

Saskatoon Skyline, though it looks frigid this was shot in 20°C weather :)

Earlier this year I'd seen a body only Canon 10D posted on Kijiji (similar to Craigslist) for $160 CDN, in its day the 10D was a great camera and marketed at pros. I didn't really have a need for the camera but at that price I was thinking I'd pick it up and leave it in my car so I always had a DSLR with me, at that price point if it got damaged or stolen I'd be disappointed but not distraught. I wound up buying it and was pleased to find it was in near mint shape. Despite being older and only 6.3MP it took very nice photos and I was surprised at the lower than expected ISO noise. My first DSLR was the first Canon Digital Rebel (300D) and since it was also 6.3MP I expected it to be the same but was delighted to find it was better.

At this point I started to think more about what I should do with this camera, I did after all already have a Fuji X100 which I'd picked up primarily as my "take anywhere" camera. Maybe my initial plan for this camera wasn't really a good one. Then I stumbled across an IR photo online somewhere and I remembered about the conversion services offered by a few companies and figured I'd look into it again. Previously it seemed way to pricey, first you had to provide a DSLR which weren't cheap and then pay for the conversion which makes it a dedicated IR camera so its not something you'd do to your main body. The more I read up online the more good things I was hearing about Lifepixel.com, in fact I don't think I read anything negative about them at all. The internet is full of horror stories about people sending their cameras into cheaper "fly by night" operations where some guy was doing these conversions in his basement or garage and was simply substituting the IR blocking filter (aka hotmirror) with Rosco or Lee filters. Since I work in electronics manufacturing and am familiar with some of the various standards I was impressed to learn that they use a Class 5 clean room to ensure they do not introduce any dust into your camera when performing the conversion.

Let me backtrack a little, for those who don't know what this conversion entails I'll explain it here, if you know what this is then feel free to skip ahead. In the old days of film all you needed to do to shoot IR was buy a roll of IR film and away you go. Nowadays all digital cameras have a glass filter installed over top of the sensor that is meant to block out infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through. Without this filter your everyday images would have a pinkish cast to them and generally not look right. The places that offer conversion will take apart your camera, remove the IR filter, also known as a "hot mirror" and replace it with a filter that only lets infrared light through. The thickness of the replacement filter must be the same as the filter they removed, even still the cameras focusing system must be re-calibrated because IR does not focus at the same distance as visible light. The fact that the insides of these modern cameras are crammed with enough electronics and mechanical parts to make Swiss watchmakers wince along with the need for an absolute dust-free environment means you should be wary of who does the conversion. There are DIY instructions available on the web but even if you get the filter installed and you manage to get very little dust in your camera your autofocus still won't work properly. If you want to see just what all is involved (minus the recalibration) Lifepixel has DIY guides though they expressly state they should not be attempted and are purely for educational purposes, here's the step-by-step for my Canon 10D.

What to expect when ordering the service:
Right now the price for converting most DSLR's at Lifepixel with a "standard" IR filter with "standard" re-calibration is $250 +$55 for return shipping and handling (keep in mind I'm in Canada) . I considered paying the extra $50 for the Deep IR filter but after talking to others who had the conversion done I stuck with the standard IR filter. Their standard lens calibration calibrates the camera for the "nifty fifty" 50mm 1.8 EF lens, since I had one kicking around after upgrading to the 50mm 1.4 last summer I stuck with this too. The shipping seems steep but this is because they insure the package decently, if I remember correctly their cost for the shipping was around $40 so they aren't skimming too much. You do have to pay to ship the camera to them as well so I think that cost me under $20 and it was insured for the conversion price and camera replacement. When you order the conversion they send you detailed shipping instructions too. When they receive the camera they notify you, the conversion is supposed to take 5-10 business days from the date they receive the camera. I mailed mine out Apr 27th and they received it May 3rd. They shipped it back May 21st and I received it May 25th, all total about 1 month.

What to expect when you get your camera back:
I did have one small gripe and that was concerning their return packaging. It was well protected and padded but all of the materials were types that generate huge static charges. Maybe its just because I work in electronics and jump through all sorts of hoops to avoid static electricity which can cause serious damage to sensitive electronics, the damage may not be immediate either. When I shipped my camera to them I put it in an antistatic bag that I had leftover from some prior electronics purchase. Anyway I don't know if Canon's packaging is entirely ESD safe either. Ok so when you get the camera back before you can start shooting you should set the custom white balance by shooting some green foilage. After that you're good to go!

A quick note about using other lenses, not all of them will work. Some lenses have special coatings inside to reduce reflections but they are made for visible light, sometimes these coatings in IR appear white and can cause blooming. Blooming is a white haze in the center of the image and is most unwanted. Since my 50mm on the cropped sensor of the 10D behaves more like 79mm I thought I'd try my 35mm 1.4 lens, unfortunately this lens suffers from this bloom effect so I'm going to have to trial and error and figure out which lenses will work. All of the images in this post were shot with the 50mm 1.8 type II lens and turned out great. The pano was shot with this lens too and multiple images digitally stitched together.

Considerations for post production:
Straight out of the camera the shot is going to look like the one below, colourwise at least.

 Colour untouched, other processing like levels and sharpening/clarity added.

In your favourite photo editing program you can swap the red and blue channels to yield a shot like the one below:

Red and blue channels swapped. 

I'm looking forward to heading out and shooting some interesting landscapes this summer with this camera. In the fall hopefully I'll get to go to Scotland where the lush greens will be perfect for IR photography. One added benefit to IR is that there aren't many people shooting it and it can give you an edge especially if you're looking at selling your artwork. The Delta Bessborough Hotel is one of the most photographed landmarks in my city, since everyone and their dog has a photo of it the chances of getting a truly unique shot of it that stands out against the rest is hard, thanks to IR I'm probably one of only a few people in my province that can get this shot digitally.

Digital Adventures In Infrared

Test image taken with my Canon G10 using an 850nm IR filter, coloured in PS during post.

Infrared photography has always intrigued me, there is something about white trees and dark skies that brings a surreal nature to the images. With the dawn of digital cameras came the apparent dusk of IR photography, IR blocking filters that are installed on the sensors almost rule out IR photography entirely. There are still a few methods left and that is what this post is about.

The IR blocking filters, sometimes referred to as "hot mirrors" apparently are not all created equal. Here is a website that lists various camera's sensitivity to the infrared spectrum, unfortunately it appears to be a little dated but you can see the variance between cameras.

One quick way to see how sensitive your camera is to IR is to point your TV remote at the lens and see if you can see the IR LED light up when you press buttons on your remote. This is only the first step however, even if you see some light it still may not be sensitive enough but its a good start!

Assuming your camera has some sensitivity to the IR spectrum you can try what I did, purchase an IR pass filter for your camera. This filter blocks the visible spectrum and lets the IR light in. Filters are available in various wavelengths, in my case I used an 850nm IR pass filter.

Since we're blocking out quite a bit of the spectrum with the IR pass filter and since our internal filter is blocking a lot of the IR our exposure times will suffer. The image at the top of this article took 4 seconds at F2.8 with an ISO of 200 in the midday sun. Other cameras and filter combinations may yield different results but you should bank on having to bring a tripod, hand holding is simply not an option.

Another, more dramatic option, exists to enable your camera to take IR photos. There are companies which will take your camera and remove the IR filter or hot mirror from the digital sensor. This method has its pros and cons, it will reduce your exposure times greatly but can also limit your camera to only being able to take IR photos. It has also been noted that most cameras will have problems with their auto focus mechanisms due to the change in thickness of the filter over the sensor. Personally I'm not that big an enthusiast that I'll be sending in my 5DMKII any time soon.

IR image faked in Photoshop

If you don't like either of these options you can always try to fake it using an image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp etc. While the results vary as much as the methods and the fact that it can be very time intensive it can yield some interesting images and give you another avenue if other options are not possible.

My Gear
I've been buying more and more stuff from this great Hong Kong based site, the other day I read an article that claimed people had success using IR filters on their G10 by use of a special adapter. I quickly checked out my Hong Kong connection and sure enough I found a 58mm filter adapter for $8 and a cheap IR filter for $19. So for approx $30 I was willing to take a gamble and it appears to have paid off!

Good luck!