I went out today to try to shoot some outdoor infrared photographs. To be completely honest, I haven’t had much of a chance to shoot much IR with the D3. I don’t recall any IR photographs from the D3 as being spectacular. When I offloaded my card and worked on an image or two, I was rather unhappy with the results. Here is one selection:
Nikon D3 Infrared Photograph
This got me to thinking about the actual nature of digital IR photography and how and why it works. DSLRs try very hard to keep infrared light out of your camera’s sensor with a filter that stands directly in front of the sensor itself. It only makes sense that the more expensive the camera, the more successful it will be at keeping IR out. Does that prove true? In this case… YES.
After I got home, I decided to make a very quick and impromptu comparison between the Nikon D3 and an older Nikon D60. Each image was shot in RAW, and processed in Lightroom for white balance only. Click each for a larger version.
Nikon D60 Infrared Test
Nikon D3 Infrared Test
With equal processing on both images, you can instantly see some pretty clear differences. First, the red cast from the Hoya R72 filter is much less apparent in the D60 than the D3. The D60 provides a much more manageable color environment to work in. This is not to say that the D3 image could not be massaged into the same image that the D60 produced almost out of the camera, but it would take some significant work. This is relevant if you want to use the natural color of the IR, but if you convert to grayscale, I found that you get almost an indentical image:
IR grayscale Comparison of Nikon D60 and D3. Click to enlarge.
The only real difference, without close inspection is that the D60 produced a slightly more contrasty image. Now, what about actual image quality and detail? Below you will find two 100% crops from the images above.
Comparing sharpness between the D60 and D3
Now the differences are more subtle. Both images lack true sharpness but if one or the other has to be crowned the winner, I would say that hands down it is the D60. The D3 just does not seem to be able to hold edge detail near areas of contrasting tones. Instead, it just makes things a blurry mess. This could be partly due to the fact that there is so much more red in the D3 and therefore less information available when translating to grayscale (depending on how you do it).
So I know that I probably could provide more examples to back my findings up, but I’m a little strapped for time at this exact moment. I will try to get some additional samples up ASAP. My conslusion is that while the D3 is a capable infrared photography device, it’s IR filter is too efficient at blocking out those much needed invisible light waves and yields a less than spectacular result. My recommendation, if you want to get truly great IR shots, go find an older cheaper body like a D70 or D50.
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