60 megapixels of near-infrared

Back in April, I wrote about the Leaf Credo wide spectrum backs which had been set up to shoot near infrared out of the box at resolutions up to 80 megapixels. Yair Shahar (from Leaf) and I spent a couple of hours on Primrose Hill in London trying the 60 megapixel version out with both a Mamiya body and a technical camera.

The image as shot with the 60 mp back is an extraordinary 8984 by 6732 pixels. With a suitable lens the resolution is also impressive, giving scope for huge detailed prints. To give you an idea, here is a 6200 by 4000 crop from a shot through a 950 nm filter looking south from Primrose hill directly towards the Shard.

If I zoom in on this until you're looking at it pixel for pixel, this is what you see just to the left of centre on the horizon, between the two dark buildings to the left of the Shard.

This was with a Mamiya 80m lens (half a second at f9, ISO 50). With a technical camera lens the image was even sharper. I have found that infrared can produce very interesting cloud images even on an overcast day, presumably because of a different balance between the brightness of the ground/trees (which show up bright in infrared due to the Wood Effect) and the cloud base. You can focus using live view with this back, which is pretty well essential for such a shot, as is a tripod. The back has no anti-aliasing filter. In general you don't need one for landscapes although there was one distant building in the scene we shot that exhibited some moiré, which was easily removed/disguised.

Leaf use another of our shots from that test on their guidelines brochure.

I had hoped to be able to do more infrared tests with the Credo during July but, unfortunately, it wasn't possible due to my work load. But the main point is made by the brief trip to the top of Primrose Hill, which is that you can produce dramatic landscapes with this kit. I'd love to see what a real landscape photographer could come up with, given more time and better weather. The Credo WS back is also proving of interest in art conservation and for forensics. There is a lot to be said for the 'shoot first and examine later' ability of very high resolution images.

[My thanks to Leaf and Yair Shahar for their help with this test.]

Inexpensive thermal camera

Your usual thermal imaging camera costs thousands of dollars, often tens of thousands. Now a guy named Andy Rawson in the US has developed (with funding via Kickstarter) a much cheaper device called IR-Blue. It uses your iPhone (or many similar) to connect via Bluetooth to both display the thermal image and superimpose it on a visual image, as the video above will show.

The down side is that IR-Blue has very limited resolution with only 64 'zones' of IR image and those concentrated in a central band. So you won't get a detailed thermal image. That said, it's cheap ($160 kit or $195 assembled) and has real-world applications such as hot-spot-tracing. And for that price it's a fun thing to have ... and it does 'see' in the dark.

[My thanks to open-hardware enthusiast Andrew Back for pointing this out.]

Graphene sensor offers better visible and near-mid IR imaging

A research team in Singapore has developed an imaging sensor made from graphene which promises to have better light-gathering over a wider spectrum and be cheaper then existing sensors such as CMOS and CCD.

A paper in Nature Communications, Broadband high photoresponse from pure monolayer graphene photodetector [abstract], outlines the work although you have to subscribe/pay to access the paper. There is more explanation at phys.org.

A patent is being applied for to cover this technology and the team, led by Assistant Professor Wang Qijie at Nanyang Technological University, will be looking for industrial partners in order to turn this into a commercial product.

This development could lead to cheaper cameras with a range into the mid infrared, which is useful for a range of applications including the reflectography used in art restoration, and the extra sensitivity across its whole response will come in handy as well. A significant achievement ... adding another string to graphene's improbable bow.

Richard Mosse at the Venice Biennale

Richard Mosse's latest work in colour infrared, The Enclave, is opening at the Venice Biennale this week and running until November 24th. I've previously noted his work in the Congo with medium format infrared Aerochrome/Ektachrome. This time it's a multiscreen movie, shot on 16mm and shown in an HD transfer. A 240 page book is being published by Aperture to coincide with the event.

I'm curious as to where he got the 16mm film stock but perhaps it's the Super-16 made for the Wristcutters project but never used.

The venue is the Irish Pavillion, Fondaco Marcello, San Marco 3415 (Calle dei Garzoni), 30124 Venezia which is near the Traghetto San Tomà. Sadly my May culture has been provided by the rebooted Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and I won't be in Venice. Richard is representing Ireland at the Biennale and there is more on the Ireland at Venice web site.

More Red infrared

Shooting infrared using a Red movie camera seems a popular activity. I've come across another nice example, this time an entry for a Brazilian One Minute Movie competition. The video is from a company called Kipper Tie, based in Surrey (near where I used to live). It's called Infrared Landscapes and was shot on Chobham Common.

I attempted to embed the video but it didn't work ... so just follow this link.