Candy Pink Infrared Photography

Let’s talk about Candy Pink infrared photography, what equipment you need to create this style of infrared photography, what camera settings to use, and how to edit these images. Also, I’ll share some challenges you might encounter when shooting Candy Pink infrared.

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Candy Pink X0, 80A, KB-20 Gallery Candy Pink X1, 80A, KB-20 Gallery

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Transcript for Candy Pink Infrared Photography. Duration: 12:06.

• 0:01 Candy Pink is an infrared style that produces blue skies and vibrant pink foliage in camera. It uses inexpensive filters and doesn't require complicated post-processing. Let's talk about what Candy Pink is, what equipment you'll need to create this style of infrared photography, what camera settings to
• 0:23 use, and how to edit these images. Finally, I'll share some challenges you might encounter when shooting Candy Pink infrared.
• 0:33 To achieve the Candy Pink infrared look, you'll start with the full spectrum of visible and infrared light. To that, add a stack of inexpensive filters originally used for film photography. These filters transmit enough blue light to capture a natural blue sky. They will also transmit a blend of visible and infrared light
• 0:55 producing pink, red, or magenta foliage. Since you'll be capturing blue sky in camera, there's no need to swap colors during editing. This makes editing much more straightforward than shooting with high-pass infrared filters. You don't even need any custom profiles to edit, although they can be helpful in some cases.
• 1:19 First, you'll need a full spectrum converted camera. Any brand of camera will do, but it must be a full spectrum conversion. Cameras converted to a high-pass infrared filter will not work. And unconverted cameras will not work. It needs to be full spectrum. There's a wide variety of filters you can use.
• 1:39 I'll share the filter stacks that I use to create these images. In a previous video, I showed test images using various combinations of these filters. The KB20 and 80A filters are both used to adjust the scene's color temperature to match daylight film. Remember when you had to pick the right film for your scene's color
• 2:01 temperature, or add a filter to match it? Good times. Well, we can now use these filters as part of our candy pink stack. The KB20 filter shifts the color temperature from 2600 Kelvin to 5500 Kelvin. The 80A filter shifts the color temperature from 3200 Kelvin to 5500 Kelvin. As you can see from this transmission chart, these filters transmit
• 2:26 cooler blue hues and block most green, yellow, and orange light. The 80A blocks red and infrared light, while the KB20 transmits them. In addition to the 80A filter, you might also experiment with other filters. The 80B, 80C, or 80D each transmits more warm light. If you have an 82A, 82B, or 82C filter, you can try them.
• 2:53 But they will have less of an effect. I'm looking forward to trying the FL-D and FL-W filters, suggested to me by fellow infrared photographer Dan Allen. These filters should reduce the green cast in the image and eliminate the need for custom profiles to get a good white balance.
• 3:11 I'll talk about this more when we get to editing. For my images, I'm using both the 80A and KB20 filters simultaneously. In addition to these filters, I've added either an X0 or X1 filter. These filters were used in black and white film portraits. The X0, or yellow-green filter, blocks blue hues, passes green
• 3:35 hues, and depresses red hues while passing infrared light. When used with the 80A and KB20, the X0 produces soft pink foliage. The X1, or green filter, is a stronger filter that allows only green light to pass. When used with the 80A and KB20, the X1 produces hot pink, red, or magenta colors.
• 4:00 This is my favorite of these combinations. I'm using filters from Hoya and B plus W, but they're available from a variety of brands. These filters are generally affordable. eBay, camera shows, and used camera markets are great places to acquire these filters. Some are still available new as well.
• 4:19 You should get filters that are the same size or larger than your lens filter thread size. You may also need step-up rings to allow for threading different size filters. Try to avoid using filters that are too small or using too many step-up rings, as both can lead to vignetting.
• 4:37 And of course, with any infrared shooting, you'll want a lens with little or no hot spots.
• 4:46 For aperture, you'll probably want to avoid diffraction, or at least be aware of it. I recommend using my visible diffraction calculator for digital cameras. This will help you see how much diffraction you can expect in a full spectrum image. Be sure to choose full spectrum in the filter selector.
• 5:04 Most of my images were shot at f5.6 on an APS-C Fujifilm X-T2. Also, be aware that wide apertures such as f2.8 can result in chromatic aberration. You'll want to use narrower apertures. When shooting candy pink, your aperture is walking a tightrope between chromatic aberration and diffraction.
• 5:27 Since I'm shooting mostly without a tripod, I want my shutter speed to be fast enough to avoid camera shake. With my 23mm lens, I typically want a shutter speed of 1.50 or 1.00 of a second or faster. Since a stack of three filters cuts down the amount of light reaching the sensor, I'll use a higher ISO than I would with a high
• 5:50 pass infrared filter such as 590 or 720nm. For those high pass filters, I can almost always use the lowest ISO 100 or 200 in sunny or overcast conditions. With the candy pink filter stack, I use ISO values ranging from 200 to 3200. Most shots were taken at ISO 800 or 1600. The noise reduction features, now commonly available in most RAW
• 6:18 editors, make it easier to shoot at higher ISO values. Of course, if you use a tripod or in body image stabilization, you can use lower ISO values and or longer shutter speeds. I shoot RAW to give me the most control over white balance in editing. If you decide to shoot JPEG, be sure to set a
• 6:38 custom white balance in camera before shooting. If your camera allows, you can also push the white balance towards red and blue to reduce any green cast.
• 6:51 Let's look at editing an image shot with the K0 stack, then one with the K1 stack. So this image was shot using the K0, the KB20 and the 80A. Currently we have the default Adobe profile set up and we can try to set a white balance. So I'll grab the white balance picker. Fortunately in this image, I have
• 7:11 plenty of targets to set a white balance. So I'll pick this column and we can see here that we have a pretty good white balance. I can confirm that not only from the look of the image, but if I look over here at the temp and tint scale, I can see that they're both within range. The range wasn't capped at either end,
• 7:28 meaning there wasn't enough reach to get there. But right now it looks like we have a pretty good white balance. So frequently with the X0 stack of filters, I can set a good white balance with the default profile without needing any custom profile. However, if you do find yourself in need of a
• 7:45 custom profile, there is an option for that. I did create one custom profile that was a tint plus 50. So you may realize if you've watched my infrared videos that I've used a temp minus 50 or temp minus 100 to adjust the color balance of the infrared images shot with high pass filters.
• 8:05 But in this case, a tint plus 50 profile could also help us to set a white balance. So now that I've selected that profile, I can grab the white balance picker again, select the column, and again, I also have a good white balance. The values are both within range. So I know that I've got a good white balance.
• 8:22 Setting a white balance with the X0 stack, the X0, the KB20, and the 80A, you can typically use a default profile, but you could also create an infrared tint profile if needed. Now let's take a look at an image shot with the X1 stack. So this is the X1 filter, the KB20 filter, and the 80A filter.
• 8:43 Let's try to set a white balance and see what we get. We're using the default profile. I'll grab the color picker. I will point to the side of this structure, which is gray, to set a white balance. Now, if I look over at the controls here, we can see that I have a good temperature setting in the middle, but my tint is capped all
• 9:00 the way at the end of the scale up at 150. And so there's maybe a little bit more of a green cast in this image that this particular range can't quite address. So what I could do is use a custom profile to address that. So I've created one, the tint plus 50 and the tint plus 100.
• 9:18 I'll grab the tint plus 100 in this case, and I'll grab my white balance picker again and we'll click on the granite. And now we can see that we have a color balance that is both good visually. I've eliminated entirely that green cast from the image, but I can confirm that by looking at the sliders and see
• 9:36 that both of these are contained within the middle. And what I found for my shooting with this stack, the X1 stack, is that I needed a profile to adjust the tint in order to set a good white balance in all of these images. Now I am hoping to do some testing in the future with an FL-D or FL-W
• 9:53 filter instead of the 80A to see if I can get that green cast adjusted without the need for a custom profile.
• 10:03 Because you're stacking multiple filters on your lens, watch out for vignetting. Even if you get three filters that match your lens filter thread size, the outermost filter might still be visible in the image. You might want to use slightly larger filters to avoid vignetting. For example, the filters I used were 62 and 67mm, but the filter
• 10:27 threads on my lenses were only 43 and 58mm. This difference also gives me some leeway to use other lenses. I used one or two step-up rings to connect the filters. Too many step-up rings could also make your filters visible. Another issue to be aware of is chromatic aberration. Since you'll be capturing a wide range of wavelengths, some lenses
• 10:52 will not be as good at bringing all of those wavelengths into the same focal plane. This can make chromatic aberration worse than usual, which appears as color fringing, especially in the corners of an image. Some of this can be addressed with the different tools in your RAW editor.
• 11:09 You're more likely to see chromatic aberration with wide angle lenses or lower quality zooms. If you're concerned about avoiding chromatic aberration, stick to primes, normal or telephoto focal length lenses, higher quality zooms, or APO lenses. Even with better lenses, expect to see
• 11:28 some chromatic aberration in the corners. Also, using wide open apertures can lead to chromatic aberration across the image. Stop down one or two stops from wide open to avoid this effect. What's next? I'd like to try alternatives to the 80A filter, such as the FL-D, FL-W, 80B, 80C, and some other filters that I've picked up.
• 11:52 Have you shot candy pink infrared? What filters do you recommend? Let us know in the comments. If you find these videos helpful on your infrared photography journey, like, subscribe, or comment. Hope you enjoyed. Thanks!