The Infrared

We have a strong belief that what we see with our eyes is everything in the world and nothing else. However, our ability to capture the outside world is very limited, and the visible light that causes a colorful sensation that we experience brilliantly covers only a very narrow light band of 380-750 nm. Shorter wavelengths of light include gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet light, which can pass through solids. Conversely, the longer the wavelength of light is, the more infrared, microwave, and radio waves are included. Sunlight from the sun contains all these wavelengths as well as visible rays, but we can not feel their presence with their eyes.

For ordinary cameras, a filter is attached to the camera sensor to block the light in the ultraviolet and infrared range, except for visible light, to improve the image quality. Therefore, when a wide range of commercially available infrared filters are installed on ordinary cameras, the amount of light reaching the sensor is extremely limited, so it takes a long time to obtain a proper image and it is very difficult to obtain a proper infrared image. Therefore, in order to take an infrared picture, the filter attached to the image sensor inside the cmera must be removed.

To remove this filter, I requested the camera conversion company (Lifepixel.com) to convert the Sony R7 to a full-spectrum camera. I took various IR photos by using various filters of blue color infrared (250 ~ 500nm, 680nm ~), super color infrared (595nm ~), enhanced color infrared (665nm ~), standard infrared (720nm ~) and deep black and white infrared (830nm ~). I could not find the information about the upper limit of these filters, but I believe all of these filters cover near-infrared bandwidth up to 1,200 nm.

In this book, I have tried to include images beyond the image we can experience, especially those triggered by near-infrared light bandwidths (750-1000 nm) I have not covered ultraviolet bandwidth, but I plan to try shooting images of the ultraviolet region soon.

Infrared photography is the most spectacular when the clouds float on a clear day sky. I visited these old palaces every weekend for two months. Fortunately, I did not get any single cloudy or rainy day, and it was good weather for infrared photography. I myself wanted to check the effects of various infrared filters, so I started to shoot with my own sense of duty. But It was soon a great pleasure for me to visit the old palace and to take pictures.

This book consists of 7 chapters excluding the prologue and epilogue. The first chapter contains the visible light photos as those taken with a standard camera (Sony A7S), and the next chapter contains the results of a full-spectrum camera that transmits infrared and ultraviolet light in addition to the visible light. In the following five chapters, you can see 20 to 30 photos by each type of infrared filters. Most of them are the scenery of the three Palaces, but some chapters include some of the other places where the effect of the IR filter is maximized.

Dettagli