Taking Aerochrome Digitial
I’ve had an infrared camera for nearly 5 years now and have been truly fascinated by the medium. Using the more classic 720nm conversion, I’ve been amazingly happy with the images its created. It creates a very classic and subtle color toned image or the more stunning black and white look. I gravitated to this because of the stark contrast it creates.
As I’ve immersed myself in getting to know infrared, I’ve come across some amazing work with Kodak’s discontinued Aerochrome film. The stunning rendition, in dramatic red, of plants has drawn my eye. With the film stock discontinued and remaining pieces more and more rare, I found myself looking for a way to emulate the medium in digital form. Thats where the 550nm filter comes in.
I recently procured two new cameras and sent them to Kolari Vision to be converted. I had one converted in the 720nm filter to reduce the size and weight of the cameras I carry. The other I had converted with the 550nm filter. I’ll do a blog post in the near future detailing the full range of working with these images from shooting to post processing so I’ll spare the technical details for now.
Now that I have both cameras back, it has come time to test the 550nm filter to see how it behaves in different kinds of light and explore its opportunities.
I took a walk from the National Gallery along the mall last night and have come out with images that are exactly what I want from this camera. I should say that I am in no way doing something revolutionary here. There are lots of people out there doing something similar and there are lots of resources for people wanting to get into infrared photography. More on that in the future.
For now, I’ll leave you with a few images to whet your appetite. Check out @dcinfrared on instagram to see more of these images as I get my feet wet with this filter.
