I suppose this began by being inspired by Infrared photographs that appeared on Twitter posted by the #believeinfilm community. I had recently begun experimenting with film photography using an old Olympus Trip 35 and so I looked into the kit that I needed to make my own Infrared pictures and then asked, via Twitter, for advice. The information I received from; @keithdevereux, @henry_balen, @Resgerr, @Stig_Ofthedump, @moragperkins, @DustinBaughPics, @JoelHDavidson1 and particularly @elland_in. I found extremely helpful and encouraging, particularly as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Looking through my old film cameras I found my Praktica Nova 1 to be the most suitable camera to use. It had a Domiplan lens with a red dot marking to help with focussing when shooting IR. This happened to be my first ever camera. My dad bought it for me for over 50 years ago for my art college pre-diploma course. I couldn’t afford to buy one and an SLR camera was an entry requirement for for the photographic element of the course I had managed to win a place on. I have always taken good care of it but have not used it for decades. It was in very good condition and only required superficial cleaning of the body and lens. Everything appeared to be in working order and so I sent for an IR filter that had been recommended. I had a cable release and a friend had gifted me an old light-meter. I’m not sure this selenium cell light-meter is accurate but with ISO speeds of 3 - 6 I thought I would wing it.
I ordered some Rollei Superpan 200 from @AnalogueWLand and waited. In the meantime I read up what I could find about Infrared photography and re-read my old Praktica camera manual.
The film finally arrived, beautifully boxed and I waited for a sunny day and set off for my local parks to try out the camera.
I found what hoped would be a suitable area, mounted the camera on my tripod and took a light reading. I checked the reading with a digital camera I had with me and it looked like the light-meter was out, so I compensated a little and bracketed the shots to be on the safe side.
As other more experienced film photographers know, you cannot see anything through the cameras eyepiece when using a very dark red filter. In order to make an image I had to unscrewed the IR filter, focus the lens, adjust using the IR focusing dot on the Nova 1 lens, screw the filter back into place, set the exposure and press the cable release. Quite a performance for someone used to digital photography.
A few IR photographs follow showing just how much I have yet to learn!
As a digital camera or phone user for many years I found it very strange not to be able to check on what I had just photographed on a backplate. A little unnerving. I did however make iPhone shots from the same position as a note to what I had taken and when. I really should have made a few field notes but I was new to all this. For my second outing I will remember to take a notebook and pencil.