Results with Heliopan IR filter

[clarionensis]

heliopan filter might not let your hood pass throught, please double check first.

 

[nickchew]

I wonder why it is only the fabric blacks that turn out purple. I would have thought that the plastics in the kitchen, like the nobs on the stove and microwave would have turned out purple as well.

Plastics don't reflect Infrared light?

Excuse the silly in me, but sony makes "nightshot" capabilities that can be turned off. Is the technology different?

Nick

 

[MP Guy]

Hood works well. no issues.

This is from the HP website

Heliopan glass filters are made with glass from Schott (Zeiss) the world's finest optical glass supplier.

Heliopan filters are "dyed in the mass" and ground, polished and coated to the highest standards of the German optical industry. All Heliopan screw-in type and series size filters are mounted in precision black anodized brass rings to eliminate binding or cross threading and to ensure optimal alignment. The care, quality and performance of Heliopan's filters make them simply the world's finest filters! Heliopan supplies screw-in filters in all sizes from 19 x 0.5 mm to 127 x 0.75 mm. They offer all series sizes from series V to 93 mm. They make square filters in 2 x 2 to 4 x 4" sizes, and Bayonet filters in Bay I, II, II, IV, V, 50, 60, 70, and 104 sizes.

Besides the usual range of filters, Heliopan supplies 13 different types of polarizers, Graduated wide-angle filters, Digital and Video filters, and a full range of special effect filters.

All filters that will benefit from coatings are hard coated on both sides, with 3 layers per side,16 layer multi coatings are also available on many Heliopan filters. The top layer on all Heliopan coated filters repel dust and moisture and the SH-PMC coating passes 99.9% of the light striking it to the image plane.

Heliopan also offers a complete range of step-up rings for filters up to 105mm and lenses as small as 27 mm. Heliopan also supplies Hasselblad, Rollei and Zeiss bayonet to screw mount adapters and Hasselblad screw mount to bayonet adapters. Also, supplied are metal and rubber lenshoods from 24 to 122 mm and gel and glass filter holders for up to 4" glass filters. On special order, custom adapters are available.

Heliopan offers at no extra charge, Circular polarizers in slim mounts for use on lenses as wide as 21 mm. without vignetting! The rims are fully calibrated also! They are available multicoated at extra cost. These filters have no front threads so a push-on cap is required.

 

[rvaubel]

Heliopan filters are at the top of the heap when it comes to filters. However their IR filter cuts IR at a longer wavelength than the B+W. That may be a good thing or a bad thing. The advantage of cutting at a longer wavelength is less of the cyan "vignetting" affect on the super wide angle lenses. the bad side is they will be less effective at getting rid of the purple/ black problem

But only experimentation will tell which is best. BTW the Tiffens appear to be weaker than either the Helios or the B+Ws

Rex

 

[yarinkel]

Plastics don't reflect Infrared light?

Excuse the silly in me, but sony makes "nightshot" capabilities that can be turned off. Is the technology different?

Nick

Plastics don't reflect Infrared light?
I would say some do, sone don't. It really depends on the material. Infrared (or near-infrared for that purpose) properties of objects cannot be deduced from the visible light properties.
Water does not reflect near-infrared rays, for example, appearing black on pictures. Some fabric do, some do not. Same goes for vegetation, or soil (Infrared aerial photography is used to detect archeologic ruins invisible to the naked eye).

for the sony "nightshot",
every ccd is naturally quite sensitive to near-infrared light. So every digital camera has a so called "hot filter" in front of the sensor to block those wavelength.
The Sony "nightshot mode" technology is just flipping this filter and making use of the natural sensitivity of the CCD (you can actually hear the filter flip when you switch to nightshot mode).

This filter is, of course, an additional piece of glass in the optic path. It seems that Leica chose to implement a very thin one for the sake of image quality, but too thin it seems in some lighting conditions.

 

[MP Guy]

more filters coming soon.

 

[jaapv]

Heliopan themselves recommend ordering filters through THIS SITE

 

[boilerdoc2]

Darn! I need to brush up on my German.

 

[jaapv]

Babelfish 😀

 

[anselwannab]

I think I can answer the question of why the blacks on the shirt are affected and not the blacks on the nobs.

The plastic knobs are probably pigmented with a carbon black pigment. The fabrics are dyed. Since there is no true black dye, you blend colors together to absorb all the visible wavelengths, thus makin it black. My guess is that the dyes used to make the black all don't absorb in the near IR, so you are getting some reflectance, making it appear lighter. Violet is often used to "Blue" up a near black to make it look blacker. (Check out "black" seat belts in full sunlight, you'll get a purple cast, at least in my Jeep.)

Carbon black pigment absorbs all the way across the UV-Vis-IR range, so it will appear black, pretty much no matter what.

I'm a pigment guy, not a Dye guy so a textile specialist can elaborate on the "How to make a black" discussion.

Mark

 

[cme4brain]

Magenta casts to black objects

Magenta casts to black objects

Above are all useful discusstions. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, so all these findings are odd to our vision. Infrared light is both reflected (depending on the light strength striking the object and its surface properties) and radiated. A black object (in visible light) photographed in direct sunlight with an IR-sensitive sensor may be a completey different color(magenta on the M8)/brightness than if that same object is photographed in shadow. This means that some darker objects radiate heat better, and will appear lighter to an IR-sensitive sensor. Remember the bottom of the space shuttle is black, as black is the best heat radiator. Also, note that pictures of caucasians by an IR-sensitive sensor may be affected as well as the blood vessels beneath the skin radiate heat and IR-energy as well, making some look sunburned.

Clearly the thin glass in front of the M8 sensor was intended to minimize reflections and moire' patterns, and the price paid was increased IR sensitivity. This was a marketing problem for Leica, as it appears that they released the camera without proper beta testing, or ignored it. I say they knew about the problem (how could they not?) but chose to ignore it hoping it would crop up in a minority number of pictures. They should have disclosed this when they sold the camera, stated that external IR filters were needed. They also should create an "open system" where the user of the M8 can instruct the camera body as to what non-coded lens is attached, thereby invoking the "cyan=vignetting" program meant for coded Leica lenses.

 

[jaapv]

Above are all useful discusstions. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, so all these findings are odd to our vision. Infrared light is both reflected (depending on the light strength striking the object and its surface properties) and radiated. A black object (in visible light) photographed in direct sunlight with an IR-sensitive sensor may be a completey different color(magenta on the M8)/brightness than if that same object is photographed in shadow. This means that some darker objects radiate heat better, and will appear lighter to an IR-sensitive sensor. Remember the bottom of the space shuttle is black, as black is the best heat radiator. Also, note that pictures of caucasians by an IR-sensitive sensor may be affected as well as the blood vessels beneath the skin radiate heat and IR-energy as well, making some look sunburned.

Clearly the thin glass in front of the M8 sensor was intended to minimize reflections and moire' patterns, and the price paid was increased IR sensitivity. This was a marketing problem for Leica, as it appears that they released the camera without proper beta testing, or ignored it. I say they knew about the problem (how could they not?) but chose to ignore it hoping it would crop up in a minority number of pictures. They should have disclosed this when they sold the camera, stated that external IR filters were needed. They also should create an "open system" where the user of the M8 can instruct the camera body as to what non-coded lens is attached, thereby invoking the "cyan=vignetting" program meant for coded Leica lenses.

I don't think ignore or miss it. I think they looked at Nikon and did not expect it to be an issue.

 

[anselwannab]

Above are all useful discusstions. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, so all these findings are odd to our vision. Infrared light is both reflected (depending on the light strength striking the object and its surface properties) and radiated. A black object (in visible light) photographed in direct sunlight with an IR-sensitive sensor may be a completey different color(magenta on the M8)/brightness than if that same object is photographed in shadow. This means that some darker objects radiate heat better, and will appear lighter to an IR-sensitive sensor. Remember the bottom of the space shuttle is black, as black is the best heat radiator. Also, note that pictures of caucasians by an IR-sensitive sensor may be affected as well as the blood vessels beneath the skin radiate heat and IR-energy as well, making some look sunburned.

Clearly the thin glass in front of the M8 sensor was intended to minimize reflections and moire' patterns, and the price paid was increased IR sensitivity. This was a marketing problem for Leica, as it appears that they released the camera without proper beta testing, or ignored it. I say they knew about the problem (how could they not?) but chose to ignore it hoping it would crop up in a minority number of pictures. They should have disclosed this when they sold the camera, stated that external IR filters were needed. They also should create an "open system" where the user of the M8 can instruct the camera body as to what non-coded lens is attached, thereby invoking the "cyan=vignetting" program meant for coded Leica lenses.

Actually, the black body radiation (emissivity) for a room temperture object is way out in the far IR (a 273K object's emission peak is about at 10,000nm for comparision sake). Due to higher tempertures, the sun or the Shuttles belly, the black body radiation peak is in the visible-near IR region. The reason you can see a white persons veins is the same reason you can see thru some clothes, they are less opaque to the near-IR (700-1200nm) range than they are in the visible. There are pigments that are totally absorptive in the visble so they are black, and transmitting in the near IR. I actually made up some business cards that were pure black, but when you looked at them with night vision (near-IR) goggles, you could see the printing underneath the "black" top-coat.

There are two night vision systems. One is based on near IR, which is the common goggles you see the troops wearing. The other is far IR based, and that sees the "heat" or temperture of the object and are called thermal imaging sights.

When you get out talking about the IR region, it gets really easy to fall back on what you can see. Compound the problem that not only are you dealing with absorption and reflection, but also transmission, and its really easy to get confused. Add in the fact that the IR is a huge range of wavelengths, and I sometimes seem to end up in circular reasoning on somethings.

Mark

 

[boilerdoc2]

Whew! Amazing learning from reading this. Very erudite bunch reads this forum!
Just took delivery of the correct Heliopan UV/IR filter from Ken Hansen (he is the best). Wild looking piece of glass. Deep pink or green depending on what angle you look at it. Damned pricey too!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Look Ma: no filters!

Look Ma: no filters!

From what I have seen, this heliopan filter has rendered the best blacks yet. It is the Heliopan Digital UV-Infrared slim version filter. Looking at the filter straight on, it has a greenish tint. Looking at an angle, it is red.

These two shots were shot in raw format. No correction whatsoever other than Auto when using camera-raw. I for one always have a filter on the lens, It looks like this will be the replacement filter for me.

I hope you don't mind I played with your file, Jorge. 😱

Since your file said the color profile was "Uncalibrated", I assumed you had your camera's setting to use AdobeRGB. I applied that profile, removed the magenta from magenta using "Selective Colors" and added 100% Black to it. Then I applied the M8 color profile that's been made available at the Leica User's Group, and ta-da! I converted to sRGB prior to posting here, so that there are no ::ahem:: calibration issues.

So there is an alternative to filters. Just thought I'd post my twopence.

If I were to have an M8, I'd just do the profiling from the get-go and most likely skip the color-removing part. But won't know until I have one in my hands...

 

[rvaubel]

From what I have seen, this heliopan filter has rendered the best blacks yet. It is the Heliopan Digital UV-Infrared slim version filter. Looking at the filter straight on, it has a greenish tint. Looking at an angle, it is red.

These two shots were shot in raw format. No correction whatsoever other than Auto when using camera-raw. I for one always have a filter on the lens, It looks like this will be the replacement filter for me.

Jorge

Its been 10 days since you posted about the Helliopan IR cut filter. Do you still think it renders the best blacks yet? How do you think it compares with the B+W 486 ? The reason that I ask is I have one already from my astro days and was wondering if I should go for the Heliopan or the B+W. The Heliopan is about the priceiest filter in the market, but the quality is superb. However, if it cuts pretty high in the IR spectrum.

Rex

 

[MP Guy]

I found that the images I took with the heliopan resulted in really deep blacks. I have seen images taken with the BW and have not seen that deep rendering. It could be the way the photographer processed the final image. But look at my sample in the first post.

 

[waterlenz]

I found that the images I took with the heliopan resulted in really deep blacks. I have seen images taken with the BW and have not seen that deep rendering. It could be the way the photographer processed the final image. But look at my sample in the first post.

Need to to side by side comparisons - same subject, lens, exposure.
Tom

 

[rvaubel]

I found that the images I took with the heliopan resulted in really deep blacks. I have seen images taken with the BW and have not seen that deep rendering. It could be the way the photographer processed the final image. But look at my sample in the first post.

Jorge

Don't you have the filter? If so are you using it doe your posted images?

Rex

 

[John Camp]

I found that the images I took with the heliopan resulted in really deep blacks. I have seen images taken with the BW and have not seen that deep rendering. It could be the way the photographer processed the final image. But look at my sample in the first post.

This may be a dumb question, but is it possible to cut out too much IR? Apparently different human eyes see slightly different amounts of near IR, so would a filter that cuts IR completely risk also cutting some marginally visible red wavelengths that we might want to keep?

JC