Picspam - More infra-red experiments (and a squirrel)

After my initial infra-red experiments I decided to spend a few quid on a proper 720nm filter (the one I previously used was intended more for filtering light sources and wasn't as clear as I liked.) Since it was made out of proper optical glass rather than plastic several mm thick it turned out to let just a little visible light through too, which let me try composing, hand-holding and shooting with the filter on, rather than faffing around with a tripod. I took a few pictures earlier in the week, using a 50mm f1.8 Nikkor E, and it's given me some quite interesting effects. Cut for large file size photos:



This is more or less the raw image - all I've done to it is stretch the contrast, since it was originally squashed up at one end of the spectrum:



This is the same image with the sky left coloured (more or less) and the rest colourised back to grey-ish. This isn't a particularly neat job, it's more a test of the method than anything else.



A couple of shots I took with the aperture wide open - not surprisingly they're out of focus, but converted to grey scale they look quite interesting.





Afterwards I walked on through the park and saw a couple of parakeets flying around - they seem to be established fairly well in Hyde Park. I was changing to a telephoto lens when one flew within three or four feet of me - REALLY annoying - then they both retreated to the tree-tops and I couldn't get a decent shot. So have a squirrel instead...





I've picked up a cheap Sony Cybershot DSC-V1 that has a built-in infrared mode for night photography; unfortunately you need to use an IR filter and a neutral density filter to take infra-red in daylight, and a special holding tube since Sony didn't put a filter ring on the lens. I'm gradually sorting this out and hope to post some pictures soon.