I’ve had a fascination with infrared photography for a very long time. Using light beyond the visible spectrum to create pictures often produces unusual results—an ordinary scene can become extraordinary with infrared photography. While I’ve been interested in this type of photography for awhile, I’ve not experimented much with it. Many years ago I shot a roll of IR film, but it didn’t turn out very well; that’s mostly my entire IR experience. I’m an infrared novice.
Even though digital cameras have a filter to block infrared light, many cameras are still IR sensitive. You can test your camera by pointing a TV remote (which works via infrared light) at it. When you press a button on the remote, if your camera is IR sensitive, you’ll see the infrared light in the LCD or electronic viewfinder. It turns out that my Fujifilm X-E4 is indeed IR sensitive (I believe that many Fujifilm cameras are). A few years ago I experimented using a non-IR converted X-E4 with a 720nm IR filter, and I indeed got some infrared pictures.
The big problem with IR photography, of course, is that—at least for color pictures—it requires significant editing, including swapping color channels. If you are a JPEG photographer who doesn’t want to hassle with all that, your options are quite limited. Black-and-white IR is a completely different story; you can get dramatic results out-of-camera without much trouble. For color, either you’ve got to be happy with a red picture, or you’ve got to edit. If you have a full-spectrum camera, there is one option that doesn’t require editing, but it does require that the camera be full-spectrum and not just IR converted.
Anyway, I’m writing all of this because I told you that I’d update you regarding the Fujifilm X-T4 ES (Extended Spectrum) camera that I ordered from the Fujifilm website. Right in the middle of my move, I received an email from Fujifilm (the “monthly content roundup” email that many of you might also receive), and towards the bottom of it was an add for the Fujifilm X-T4 ES. “Look into the infrared extended spectrum and document the results in beautiful detail with this specialist version of the popular X-T4.”
There was a link in the email to the official Fujifilm online store where the X-T4 ES was listed with very little information about what it is exactly. Even though I did not know much about the specifics of its IR capabilities, I decided to order the camera anyway. The link no longer works (and hasn’t for a week-and-a-half), and the X-T4 ES can no longer be found on the website. I assumed that either the listing was a mistake, or it was sold out quickly.
Then today (two weeks after ordering) I received an email stating that the camera has shipped. Apparently the Fujifilm X-T4 ES has traversed from New Jersey to Tennessee, and just departed Memphis for Arizona within the last few minutes. It’s supposed to arrive at my door on Monday. Yea!
I searched the internet, and found very little information about the Fujifilm X-T4 ES. It was briefly listed at B&H (apparently mistakenly) back in February of last year. Fujifilm has made two other IR models—the X-T1 and GFX100—but those were specifically for “forensic, scientific, and cultural preservation applications, and will not be made available to general customers for personal use.” But the X-T4 ES was made available to the general public, just in a very limited quantity and without much fanfare. I’m not sure what “extended spectrum” even means, so that’s something I look forward to finding out.
It won’t be much longer before I’m capturing infrared pictures on a dedicated Fujifilm IR camera, but in the meantime, I have a lot of questions and very few answers. Once I have the Fujifilm X-T4 ES in my hands, I’ll be able to tell you a lot more about it. Stay tuned!
A few days ago a post popped up on Instagram of a specialist lens I think it said was made for forensic work, and was optimized for a wider range of light than that visible to the human eye. I think that included UV as well as IR. Unfortunately I didn’t take much notice as it wasn’t something I was particularly interested in but this post reminded me of it. I suppose it makes sense that ordinary lenses aren’t at their best outside the visible part of the spectrum, so a specialist lens is required for the best results. Anyone know anything more about this type of lens?
Not exactly what you are asking about, but this might be useful to someone nonetheless…
https://www.robsheaphotography.com/infrared-lenses/
https://kolarivision.com/lens-hotspot-list/
I’m relatively new to you and Fuji, but I’d like to recommend Rob Shea’s website for all things infrared. I have had two cameras that were converted to infrared by Kolari Vision – your other link – and I’ve been well treated by Kolari and Rob Shea. (I have no connection with either.) And while I’m at it, I should say that your website has been a great help in my increasing affection for Fuji.
Thanks! I have watched a couple of his videos. I appreciate the tip.
Check also:
https://fujixsystem.blogspot.com/p/fuji-infrared-lens-tests.html?m=1
In long series of useful comments you have quite an added list of lenses.
Rob Shea does make a reference to it.
Kolari Vision test lists is less useful for Fujifilm users though (and it is outdated). More useful intel, especially for UV photography, are in their tutorial / test pages (Go on the central reference for UV and IR photography, then scroll).
I think my Fujinon 35mm f/2 will be my go-to IR lens. I read somewhere that the Helios 44-2 is good, so I might use that one sometimes, too.
Congratulations on your purchase Ritchie!
Welcome to the IR world!
You’ll see it is a LOT of fun. I do appreciate a lot taking B&W SOOC jpeg IR pictures with my dedicated X-E1 720nm IR converted (see my portfolio – yet did not have time to add new pictures, too much work).
And lately doing Full Spectrum photography, also SOOC jpeg, with my X-A3 converted to FS.
Adequate UV and IR sensitive lenses are essential. Not all Fujifilm lenses are adequate for IR photography (samewhise for all the other brands). Basically most of them are not good in UV due their extra coating (hence their price) and for IR due to their complex lens formula which are producing the unrecorevearble white spots (well Rob Shea as a workaround but way not 100% and you need heavy post-editing).
Nevertheless several Fujifilm and third parties lenses (cheap chinese ones) are extra good in IR.
On Fujifilm I can highly recommend the Fujicron line: 23/35/50 F2.
Do check indeed Rob Shea, wesite and YouTube channel even thought he is focusing his work on post-editing.
On his web site he has compiled a nice list of lensed which are good or bad to use for IR photography (I’ve got other links if you want adding more intel and IR user feedback).
On my X-E1 IR 720nm, I plugged the XC35 F2, which has exactly the same lens formula as the XF but simply cheaper since being more plastic, having no WR / no aperture ring. And I gain with the XC/XF a better and speedier focus capacity out the X-E1.
On bright sunny day, the combo is pleasure to use. I set at f5.6 for my landscape and get crazy speed (1/500s and above).
Like the Leica monochrome, hanging an IR converted camera add of dynamic range and lighting gathering. Well during the day of course, because of the wave lengths and sensor night shots or cloudy days are not extra. You need to have contrast to achieve nice results.in B&W IR.
But it is just awsome to do handheld IR photography!
With IR converted camera for B&W you do not need tripod anymore and expensive IR filters.
I choose 720nm do to get straight B&W images but not too dramatic. And with Fujifilm on-board B&W conversion (aka B&W film simulation) is must !
With your X-T4 ES, you’ll benefit of Acros film simulation and extra goodies like grain, expended settings, etc as you well know and experiment in your recipes.
For B,&W IR, you do the custom WB on foliage / green and you’re set to go ! Extra.
I pick the XC/XF 35 F2 over the XF35 F1.4, as the F2 (and other Fujicrons) are just perfect all over the apertures. And while fast lenses are most appreciated when using filters, on converted camera you do need realy hyper fast lenses (and if you do landscape definitely not).
Also more importantly the XF35 F1.4 from my experience and others people feedback do begin to produce a white IR spot at F8 and beyond in certain conditions… But fully usable from F1.4 to F5.6.
On the other hand for the initial Fujifilm trio, the XF18 pancake and XF60 macro are just hawfull in IR as they produce the dreaded IR white spot on all the aperture range.
Thought the XF 60 macro is extra good for UV photography due to its counting.
If I remember well like the special GFX100, the X-T4 ES is sensitive to near UV photography. You’ll need though a very expensive but very good UV bandpass filter from Kolari Vision.
I never seen adds for the X-T4 ES as it seems to be reserved exclusively to US market. You’re lucky.
For my part I made the convertion of my E-X1 in UK via Alan Burch. Now KO with the Brexit, Alan reverted to UK market only (not good for his business).
But I managed to find a nice and very competent German guy, near the Baltic Sea: IRRECams.de who do camera conversion (IR and FS) and sell IR filters like Kolari Vision.
Here is his page on the different IR filters comparison:
https://irrecams.de/en/infrared-effect-filter-comparison/
Now Ritchie you’re lucky again, living in US so you have Kolari Vision doing all: camera conversion, producing and all kind of filters from UV to deep IR, for photography, cinema, astronomy.
They are the best from my trials (but very expensive for me taking in account the shipping cost always FedEx quick delivery and EU customs fees).
Their website also do provide a lot of intel and how to on UV and IR photography. Good reading along Rob Shea.
Especially on UV photography side where you do not have much littérature. Thanks to Kolari, I found that my XF60 macro was usable for UV photography with their bandpass filter when they tested the special X-T1 on its release.
IR photography is one thing, Full Spectrum is another one. I would say more challenging, more demanding as you need dedicated filters (which are expensive) and time consuming if you are doing the required post-editing.
As you’ll experiment with your X-T4 ES which is a kind of limited Full Spectrum like the special GFX100 is.
But via Kolari Vision and IRReCams.de, I managed to find dedicated IR filters to still do SOOC jpeg IR colour photography without any need of post-editing.
Along the standard B&W deep IR filters (700nm to 1000nm), Kolari Vision is providing 3 awsome filters which are directly ‘swapping’ the channels in a post-editing way and thus keeping the sky blue + not giving the reddish averal look without post-editing:
1) Their special IR Chrome filter which produces gorgeous IR SOOC image looking exactly like the iconic Kodak Aerochrome IR look (you know the blue sky with red foliage).
Go though their pages, the creation and design of this filter is very interesting.
Kolari Vision are the only one to produce it…
I love the effect. Thought it can produce an orange look instead depending on your sensor technology (Fuji Bayer ones do produce an orange look).
2) the Blue IR / NVDI or InfraBlue (from IRRECams.de).
3) Kolari new Candy Chrome IR. Those 3 filters will produce SOOC IR images with blue sky with green / blue rendition.
I love the effect too.
The Candy Chome IR looks pretty nice. But I went for cost reasons to the InfraBlue of IRRECams.de which was offering a huge rebate doing a camera FS conversion.
All those filters are slightly a bit different because of the wave lengths they are filtered, the material used for building the filter and the special coating applied. All matter at the end the wave lengths reaching the sensor!
I like a lot to add hard science (physics and optics) to my photography experiments which enable more thinking (as you need to compute what you want to achieve and thanks to digital photography you see directly the results prior shooting) and also gives you a totally different perspective and perspection.
The ending image result can be very special to weird out of normal photography, ence during exhibitions it also produce a lot of interests and discussions.
A bit like all the comments we had with Villeune’s Dune part 2 where he shooted in B&W IR for the Harkonnen Arena Scene so to render the black sun effect (tremendous scene, I was so happy to discover it and even more appriciate it! People going out of the movie theatre were all astonished).
I would add on doing Full Spectrum photography with a converted camera, you can still do also handheld photography.
Thought using filters do reduce significantly the amount light gathered, UV being the worst of course along 1000nm IR.
In SOOC mode uding the about describe filters requires you to do on nearly every shot (depending on light conditions evolution of course) a custom WB prior the shot. If not you’ll be off the tracks especially with the IR Chrome filter.
For deep IR B&W photography, I found you can do it much less unless you quickly from sunny to shady lighting. I’m never really redo my custom WB on my X-E1 IR 720nm.
Hence for IR and UV colour photography the use of white card is a must. I pick one from IRRECams.de who produced a sturdy plastic one in a credit card size format (very handy).
With all that, it convinced me to convert to Full Spectrum the old X-A3 of my daughter done by IRRECams.de.
In US I would strongly recommend Kolari Vision as they are the best and most knowledgeable.
The conversion is never cheap.
Be careful on what you found on eBay for example.
You realy need to place a good filter (in quartz 280nm for UV / FS for example) and a not a cheap one to achieve good results either in UV or IR.
I’m missing though on the X-A3 the viewfinder, but having still a physical labeled WB button is a must when you do FS photography as you need to hit this button a LOT to do your custom WB quickly.
With that X-A3 FS, I enjoy a lot playing with the custom WB and filters I bought. Even trying full manual WB shifting or the different on-board WB setup.
The effects can range a lot.
I’m even playing now with some of your recipes Ritchie picking up some of them so to tweak even further the mood of my images (colour and B&W ones).
The X-A3 is a bit limited on settings, your X-T4 ES will add more possibilities having more availabe and more expended ones (-4 to + 4 range instead of 2, 7 banks to save the WB, more film simulations to play with, etc).
To finish, the most difficult part is UV photography. You need a lot of sun (again you’re lucky), and be extra careful with UV light producing machines.
I would again advise the Kolari Vision UV bandpass filter. Very expensive but the only UV bandpass filter on the market made specifically for ‘standard’ photography (like the IR Chrome). You can easily find astronomy UV filterd, but you’ll need then an adaptor, ending up paying more or less the same price.
Extra tip: you can pay less with Kolari as many times they offer sales on their B grade filters (like for the moment on the IR Chrome – all size might not be offered though).
B-grade filters are with tiny diffects like microscopic scratches and bubbles (which do not affect at all the image quality) and so are spoted during QC. But are still in the fully usable. Hence sold with rebate even more when in sales.
Looking forward you received your X-T4 ES and experiment with it.
Enjoy !
My goal is to create some good SOOC workflows, and not edit. That sounds wishful thinking for color, but if it can be figured out, I’m going to figure it out. I have an IR Chrome filter on the way (thanks for the tip!), so that will help for an aerochrome look.
I very much appreciate your thorough and thoughtful advice! It’s quite helpful. Thank you!
You’re very welcome Ritchie.
This will be a very interesting journey.
And indeed building a good SOOC workflow can be a challenge.
But a wonderful one !
It make me think a lot.
A bit the same when I’m selecting a new lens, especially those specials (aka special look like fisheye, pinholes, character ones, etc) and built something with it. But also vice-versa after catefull research to pick the one and built the technic to achieve the desired image result.
So definitely choosing the correct filters to go along is essential. it will help a lot. But gear is only a part of it.
So I’m looking forward the reception of your X-T4 ES and filters, and see your trials and where you will go.
It’s only the beginning 😉
Cheers.
Interestingly, I have quickly found a new use for my B&W film color fiters… they work on infrared! The XO Green/Yellow is especially interesting.
Cool 👍
Links to filters for UV, IR and FS photography in SOOC jpeg mode:
1) KV UV bandpass (B-grade):
https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-vision-uv-photography-filter-ultraviolet-bandpass-transmission-lens-filter-b-grade/
IRRECams.de is intending to produce UV bandpass filter so to its offer and service as doing calera conversion but initial batches were scratched as they had too much visible and IR bleading.
He might also joint venture with Kolari Vision so to important their products in Europe.
Both subject are under review might come end of the year as I was told during my extensive email exchange in March 2024.
2) KV IR Chrome (B-grade, Kodak IR Aerochrome look) :
https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-vision-ir-chrome-lens-filter-b-grade/
New variantion: Candy Chrome IR:
https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-candy-chrome-infrared-lens-filter-preorder/
3a) KV Blue IR / NVDI (used for crop analysis among other things):
https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-vision-infrared-lens-filter/
3b) For Europeans KV equivalent called InfraBlue (IRRECams.de) :
https://irrecams.de/en/infrared-effect-filter-comparison/#infrablue
4) Then you have the standard IR filters ranging from 550nm to 1000nm :
https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-vision-infrared-lens-filter/
https://irrecams.de/en/infrared-effect-filter-comparison/
For B&W IR (SOOC) pick from 720nm and above.
Note: On a fixed IR converted camera like 720nm, you add a 1000nm IR external filter so to shoot at this higher wave length.
Thanks for the links! Definitely a lot to consider when it comes to filters.
I would 100% change that filter and I recommend a Hoya R72 then try it again and compare. I love IR and have done it for years with inexpensive sensitive point and shoots. I think almost every Fuji is capable because the ones I’ve shot with have a tendency to over expose. The R72 is total blackout and I love using IR in b/w. I don’t think I can attach here but I’ll add a few on my IG and tag you.
I’ve got a Hoya R72 on the way. Thanks!