I have been experimenting with IR photography using a filter. I had terrible hotspotting when using a 18-55 kit lens so I read abit more and the recommendation seemed to be to use a prime lens with a red spot on the barrel (for canon users) as they were better for not getting the hotspots.
However as you can see below the hotspot still happened.
I searched tags for some inspiration and help but most of the IR pics on here seem to be taken with a converted camera... anyone got any tips for preventing the hotspot issue or is it just luck/trial and error?
I was looking into this, I found out the 1.8 50m prime ie nifty fifty works really well for ir photography with no hot spots, I will find a link in which will tell you what lenses to use for ir photography
Not all lenses are suitable for ir, check out the link below for recommended lenses for ir
All Canon lenses have a red spot on the barrel -- it indicates how the lens should be aligned to fit into the bayonet mounting. It won't determine a good or a bad lens for IR photography.
Hotspots are primarily due to lens design -- lenses aren't typically designed for IR photography so they can have issues that cause IR to reflect unpredictably. Typically the easiest thing to do is to switch to a known 'good' lens for IR photography.
You can scroll down to the Canon section. You'll notice that the 50mm f/1.4 lens you're using here is listed as being a bad lens for hotspots, so I'm not surprised that you're seeing issues. You'll also see one of the 18-55mm kit lenses is listed as bad -- this may be the model you have.
Even if you have a 'bad' lens, you can try different settings to minimise hotspots. They will typically show up at narrower apertures, so you might try opening your 50mm to between f/1.4 and f/2.8, and see if that makes things better. Similarly with zoom lenses, they will often show hotspots much more at certain zoom ranges, so try both the wide and zoom end of the lens and see which is best.
Note that hotspots aren't generally related to whether the camera is converted or not -- the issue occurs within the lens rather than the camera, so a converted camera will not necessarily perform any better in this regard.
@abirkill thanks for the reply Alexis. Not all of my canon lens have a red spot some have a white so I assumed when I read that advice that the quality might have been different. The link is very helpful as is your advice about varying the aperture and diff zoom range. Thanks for taking the time to help :)
Red spots are on full-frame lenses (work on all Canon DSLRs), white spots are on EF-S lenses (work on crop-frame DSLRs, e.g. most of the consumer range). They line up with the red or white spots on the camera mount.
If you did want to upgrade your zoom lens, the Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens is a nice upgrade from the kit lens, not too expensive, and didn't cause me any hotspot problems when I used it a few years ago -- although I didn't use it extensively. This was taken on an unconverted 350D:
@abirkill that's a gorgeous shot. I checked out the lists of lens you and Simon posted and due to my range of lenses being less that extensive :( The only one I have is my 55-250mm so I will give that ago whilst varying aperture and zoom etc.. I am avoiding buying lenses right now as I am saving up to hopefully get a full frame camera which was why I bought the 50mm that I did (typical that my original 50mm that got bust would have been ok, serves me right for upgrading lol)
Anyway thanks again I really appreciate the advice :)
@abirkill Hi Alex thats the lens I have the 17-85mm, I have read that it's not very good for ir and has mixed reviews about using it for ir photography on some other links I was reading and it put me off about getting a filter for it?
So you had some good success with it then Alex?
Hot spots like you show are almost always caused by reflections off the internal surface of the lens barrel. I have even seen the beginnings of such spots occasionally with normal visible light. The kit 12-42 G lens from Panasonic at about 35mm is one I remember recently. Usually nothing you can do but try another lens, or different length of a zoom lens in question again as Alexis points out
The link to the Kolari Vison web site Alexis gave above is a good one. They are here in NJ and were kind enough to talk at length with me a week or so ago. I am told that hot spots will occur even with the normal shutter speeds of a converted camera.
@frankhymus thanks so much for the response Frank, its nice to know that its fairly common and that converting the camera doesn't always fix it. Going to practice like Alexis suggested and hopefully i'll get a better response - will post here when I get some results :)
@simon0128 I didn't have any problems with it when I had it, although as I say, I probably took less than 100 IR shots with it, so I'm not in a great position to say it's perfect.
If you buy a filter that fits the largest lens you have (by filter-thread size) then you can use step-up rings to fit the same filter to your other lenses -- this is a good way to save buying filters for each lens, and allows you to try the filter on all of your lenses.
@abirkill Yes, a good way to buy the best filter once. Important with any filter, but critical for IR, or at least I am told, is the quality of the glass, although my $20 Polaroid IR720 (from Amazon) has given me decent enough results so far, that I think I will convert my old Nikon D5100 so I can hand hold normally. Kolari Vision, whom you referenced above, is a tiny company, but come with good credentials from my Camera Super-Store who have all their conversions done by them. They are not cheap though. :(
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Not all lenses are suitable for ir, check out the link below for recommended lenses for ir
http://dpanswers.com/content/irphoto_lenses.php
Hotspots are primarily due to lens design -- lenses aren't typically designed for IR photography so they can have issues that cause IR to reflect unpredictably. Typically the easiest thing to do is to switch to a known 'good' lens for IR photography.
There's a list here that shows how a lot of lenses perform for IR photography:
http://www.kolarivision.com/lenshotspot.html
You can scroll down to the Canon section. You'll notice that the 50mm f/1.4 lens you're using here is listed as being a bad lens for hotspots, so I'm not surprised that you're seeing issues. You'll also see one of the 18-55mm kit lenses is listed as bad -- this may be the model you have.
Even if you have a 'bad' lens, you can try different settings to minimise hotspots. They will typically show up at narrower apertures, so you might try opening your 50mm to between f/1.4 and f/2.8, and see if that makes things better. Similarly with zoom lenses, they will often show hotspots much more at certain zoom ranges, so try both the wide and zoom end of the lens and see which is best.
Note that hotspots aren't generally related to whether the camera is converted or not -- the issue occurs within the lens rather than the camera, so a converted camera will not necessarily perform any better in this regard.
Red spots are on full-frame lenses (work on all Canon DSLRs), white spots are on EF-S lenses (work on crop-frame DSLRs, e.g. most of the consumer range). They line up with the red or white spots on the camera mount.
If you did want to upgrade your zoom lens, the Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens is a nice upgrade from the kit lens, not too expensive, and didn't cause me any hotspot problems when I used it a few years ago -- although I didn't use it extensively. This was taken on an unconverted 350D:
Anyway thanks again I really appreciate the advice :)
So you had some good success with it then Alex?
The link to the Kolari Vison web site Alexis gave above is a good one. They are here in NJ and were kind enough to talk at length with me a week or so ago. I am told that hot spots will occur even with the normal shutter speeds of a converted camera.
If you buy a filter that fits the largest lens you have (by filter-thread size) then you can use step-up rings to fit the same filter to your other lenses -- this is a good way to save buying filters for each lens, and allows you to try the filter on all of your lenses.
this one had less of a hotspot problem, now I just have to find the best settings to minimise noise etc...