Infra-Red Photography

(imported from my former photo blog)
I recently acquired a new accessory, an infra-red filter for my digital SLR.  What a fun toy!  (I amuse easily). 

I followed the instructions from my favorite book written especially for my camera;  "Nikon D40 / D40X Digital Field Guide", by David D. Busch.

A little tricky as you are literally shooting blind, the filter is black - and nothing is what you see through the view finder.  It's OK, I've had years of film photography, which is kind of similar in that you don't know what you're getting till the film is developed, relying solely on your technical capabilities.  

I tried several long exposures on the tripod out in the front yard.  I set up the image and focused it before attaching the filter.  Luckily, digital cameras have a viewing screen which gave me the feedback I needed to proceed further.

Of all the images, this one stood out for me, was in focus and a good example of the filters performance.

This is the initial image, in the camera at 8 seconds.  I had to convert it to grayscale in the computer software to achieve the next step.

Which is this.  I think it's kind of fun.  Black sky, luminous evergreens.  No other post production, but I am tempted to play with the contrast.

Disclaimer:  This is in no way intended as a technical explanation of infrared photography, or a tutorial, only my brief experiment with it.