23 image Infrared landscape mosaic

[gregbradley]

Tbis is Govetts Leap a scenic lookout overlooking the Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

I took 23 images total with 3 rows and used a 720nm infrared filter and a Canon 40D. Lens was Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 ED (a beautiful lens). Focus using live view and 10X magnification (what a great feature).

I used a tripod but the shooting was very rapid -perhaps just a minute to swing around and shoot each shot overlapping manually by about 20% or more.

Various Photoshop work done. I used a custom white balance which helped a lot as the images straight out of the camera were quite nice instead of the usual all red.

Formed in PTGui Pro and then PS CS2.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/142416479

Greg.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

I like it, looks a little OOF in the middle in the valley, but could be my eyes. Still that looks an awesome spot for pano's/

[DavidTrap (David)]

It's not the usual IR effect that I was expecting. Usually the foliage turns out white - I suspect it's a consequence of your custom white balance selection.

There are some other techniques where you can swap the red and blue channels in Channel Mixer on PS and create a false colour IR shot if you want to maintain some resemblance of normality to the scene.

DT

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Astroman

I like it, looks a little OOF in the middle in the valley, but could be my eyes. Still that looks an awesome spot for pano's/

Front left? The lens is F2.8 and has the nice shallowish depth of field. Perhaps I could have shot it F5.6 and gotten a deeper depth of field. That would be out of focus slightly for the closer left area and in focus a the farthest part of the image. It was manual focus and wide open to get maximum light through the filter (1/3rd of a second as it was).
Next time I'll keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

It's not the usual IR effect that I was expecting. Usually the foliage turns out white - I suspect it's a consequence of your custom white balance selection.

There are some other techniques where you can swap the red and blue channels in Channel Mixer on PS and create a false colour IR shot if you want to maintain some resemblance of normality to the scene.

DT

Thank David.

Yes I used a bit of that channel mixing tool but not the straight swap as you mention. That gives an overall blue look.

Custom white balance is as simple as taking a photo of the bulk tree area only in the shot then setting that image as the custom white balance.

Works really well.

I also have straight red infrared mosaic to be done and no doubt that will end up as a different look. As well as normal colour mosaic data (I took 12 mosaics all up - its a fair drive to this place).

Greg.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Agreed it does give a blue appearance. I think IR is an acquired taste - I don't mind it, but it can definitely be overdone. It's something you can pull out and make a striking shot in the middle of the day when the light is otherwise too harsh.

DT