Predator
A bright, clear Tuesday morning: plenty of sun and blue sky. Gubs joined us for the school run—someone’s coming round to look at his car this morning, so it needs to be on the drive. It was nice to have him back in charge of the driving soundtrack. Apart from that, no pressing engagements for me for the rest of the day… although I will probably get out for a longer walk this afternoon. Got my blip in early, with this infrared shot of Ronan spotting a bird in the bright sunlight.
I have been experimenting with infrared photography on my iPhone. My lovely old Fujifilm X-E1—converted for 720mm infrared—sadly passed away last year, and I have been pining for wavelengths unseen. I will undoubtedly pick up another used mirrorless body at some point and get it converted, but till now it had not occurred to me that my phone can shoot in infrared as well. I dug out an old Hoya IR filter from a dozen years ago, and found that I already had a 37mm to 58mm step-up ring for my Beastgrip phone cage.
It turns out that not only can the iPhone shoot in infrared, but it is unexpectedly good at it. I’d anticipated shutter speeds of several seconds, requiring a tripod and a long-exposure app, but in fact, the phone managed handheld infrared photography nicely, and even captured infrared video! This latter surprise caught Gabriel’s attention, and he picked up a filter of his own to use in his filmmaking. The main caveat to all this praise is that the phone appears to employ some form of night mode processing to achieve such fast shutter speeds, which results in a LOT of noise, even at a seemingly low ISO of around 250. I suspect this might be less of an issue using a third-party long-exposure app, but further experimentation is needed.
