The Kings River, Kells, Kilkenny – In infrared …
17mm Olympus f1.8 lens
Urth R72 filter
F8 at 25 seconds exposure
The river bank in Infrared
Black and White Landscapes 2018
The river bank in Infrared
Nigel Borrington
Down in the deep water, Image and Poem
Castlecomer lakes and river Dinin, county KIlkenny
Infra-red image
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Down in the deep water..
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where I ponder my life
Just how did I get to this
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where the waterfall of dreams
Sweeps away what’s left to the abyss
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where time stands still
just only forever.
Down in the deep water
By the edge of the river
Where I buried all
That was ever my childhood
Where I let it go,
Where it bends and meanders,
Twisting along as the years went past.
Seemingly calm, but screaming beneath the surface
Were its hidden whirlpools, a sweeping current
Down in the deep water,
I left the edge of the river,
As I looked down
For my soul at the bottom.
Deep in the deep water
Swept away by the river
I drowned in life,
Sinking forever.
Irish photography – Irish rivers
River Nore, Thomastown, County Kilkenny
Digital Infra-red image
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
County KIlkenny’s rivers
The River Nore, one of the three sisters.
The River Nore, is a 140-kilometre (87 mi) long river located in south-east of Ireland. Along with the River Suir and River Barrow, it is one of the constituent rivers of the group known as the Three Sisters.
The river drains approximately 977 square kilometres (377 sq mi) of Leinster. The river rises in the Devil’s Bit Mountain, North Tipperary. Flowing generally southeast, and then south, before emptying into the Celtic Sea at Waterford Harbour, Waterford.
Kilkenny landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Kilkenny photography
Nikon D90 with IR720 Infra-red filter on a 50mm f1.4 lens
Castlecomer discovery park, County Kilkenny
Landscape photography: Nigel Borrington
Another Infra-red image from the Discovery park, Castlecomer, County Kilkenny.
Deep dark water, infra-red photography
Nikon D90 with IR720 Infra-red filter on a 50mm f1.4 lens
Castlecomer discovery park, County Kilkenny
Landscape photography: Nigel Borrington
One reason I truly love monochrome images is for the contrast range that can be achieved, no where is this more possible than when attaching an IR720 filter on to a lens.
This filter only lets in Infra-red light and excludes any other light wavelength, Thus anything that is emitting IR light will be recorded in light tones and any other area of the image will appear dark a deep, deep black.
It is this very high contrast that is so hard to achieve in photography, without post processing software. Using an IR720 filter however can produce this effect in images right out of the camera and they just look wonderful.
You do have some issues to over come however, you need to pre-focus and lock the focus before attaching the filter to the lens. You need long exposures and you need to experiment with the correct selection of setting for this by taking many shots as you will not truly be able to see the results until you get home.
You can get a camera completely converted to Infra-red, but this is expensive and may not always work i.e. the focusing system fails to work and some sensors produce better results than others.
Infrared Photography
Two of my most recent post included Infrared images, so I thought I would post an example of the before and after post processing images.
Infrared image before post processing
An IR R72 lens filter was placed over the lens and the images was taken at ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 2 seconds. The Lens aperture was F4. Remember this filter only lets in IR light in the IR wavelength.
Bridge of the River Anner, Co Tipperary
The bridge in the shot is located just south of Slievenamon on the Anner River, I placed my tripod in the middle of the river and kept as much force on it as I could to keep the camera still.
Irish Photography series, by Kilkenny photographer : Nigel Borrington
Infrared photography, The bridge over the kings river, kells, Co Kilkenny
Infrared Photography, The bridge over the kings river
An infrared shot of the bridge that crosses the kings river at kells, Co.Kilkenny. This images is taken using a camera on a tripod that has an infrared (IR) filter over the lens.
Because these filters block anything but light in the infrared wave length, composing the shot is performed with the filter removed and then put in place, you cannot see anything through the viewfinder with the filter attached. Focusing the shot is not made simple as the focus point of IR light is not the same as visible light so focusing after you attach the filter will not work.
Older lenses such as Nikon Nikkor AIS lenses had a red (R) marking on them so that you could see the focus point for IR light at any given focus length of the lens, if the lens was a zoom lens the marking changed as you moved the zoom position. I still have some AIS lenses so they get used for this purpose.
Another option for IR photography is to purchase a digital camera converted to photograph only IR light, focusing however will still be down to you. The use of a small lens aperture such as f22 will help with focus errors but you must remember to lengthen your exposure time, yes the cameras exposure meter will not work on IR light so you’re into full manual mode.
Because IR light levels are very low you will need to use both a tripod and a slow shutter speed in order to get a sharp and well exposed shot. The use of software such as photoshop is not needed if you can get the correct exposure directly from the camera. One thing that will become clear is that in a colour exposure only red light is recorded, so if you intend to print directly to your printer then change your camera setting to black and white or set your printer for a monotone print.
This type of photography is great fun and can produce some great results, such as the water in this image. It took some 8 seconds to get the correct exposure so the water movement has merged to produce a mirror like effect.
The feeling you get must be the closest thing to the original feeling that Landscape photographers had when they set-up very large format cameras in the field.
Nigel Borrington 
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