Photo Dump: Rollei Infrared 400
There’s certainly been many trials and errors with this one
What do you shoot with an infrared film stock? Infrared, of course. So when I decided to try the Rollei Infrared 400 stock, I ordered a B+W093 IR filter for my 35mm Summicron lens, and took my camera and tripod for a walk with my friend Kevin. The 093 filter blocks all visible light, so it looks like a solid black piece of glass. What I didn’t know at the time was, because all visible light was blocked, you shouldn’t judge exposure time based on how bright the scene looks. Of the two dozen frames I shot with the filter on, only one or two came out. All the rest of the frames were as blank as my soul. This is one of the frames that came out.
Fortunately, if you remove the IR filter, the Rollei Infrared 400 can be used as normal panchromatic film. And you can put other colour filters to get better contrast. Here’s another few frames that survived that roll, shot with a dark red filter.
After I moved to Dublin, I shot another roll. Only this time, I didn’t even attempt to shoot with IR filters. Here’s a few frames.
This was shot at night, obviously. No filter was used.
Indoor scene, no filter. The imperfections of this frame are endearing.
The dark red filter rendered the blue sky completely black. Oh the contrast!
Another one with dark red filter. The white was rendered very clean.
These gulls are terrible assholes. And I stand by my judgement.
And that’s the end of today’s dump. This film stock is versatile. I will definitely try IR again when I get a chance. Dublin’s weather certainly doesn’t make it easy to shoot IR, but I will try.
Lots of very nice pics here. The chair, with all the lines, blew me away.