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I am have taken quite a few shots using an IR760 filter, 30 seconds or longer exposure, both raw and jpeg, strong sunshine, and my images do have the red tint when I view. I have tried every single post processing I can find including PS and LR, channel swap, mixer, white balance picker, etc and I simply cannot get the green trees to turn white. What am I doing wrong? Am I not setting the white balance before shooting correctly? Am I picking the wrong scenes? Scenes are mostly green trees, maybe farmland, barn, pond, assorted. The filter is ICE (Ice Optical Glass) IR760. Is it the filter? First one I ever bought and it had a good review but maybe I am doing everything wrong. Thank you for any advice. Debbie

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    Canon Mark IV... seems to be missing something. Which camera is it? 1D Mark IV or 5D Mark IV?
    – osullic
    Jul 2, 2021 at 16:04
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    All the filter does is block certain wavelengths of light. In this case, light with a wavelength shorter than 760nm. So, you are left with trying to form an image using only light in the scene with a wavelength longer than 760nm. This is the "red end" of the visible spectrum. What wavelengths of light your camera's sensor is sensitive to is also relevant. Foliage appears white in some infrared photography because infrared light is reflected strongly by foliage. But it depends how your camera's sensor renders the light—if it can "see" it at all. It doesn't automatically get rendered as white.
    – osullic
    Jul 2, 2021 at 16:14
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    @osullic should be an answer?
    – xenoid
    Jul 2, 2021 at 17:28
  • Does this answer your question? Infrared photography—why are green leaves not appearing as white?
    – inkista
    Jul 2, 2021 at 23:32

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Typical digital camera sensors natively respond to infrared and ultraviolet in addition to visible light.

Because this is not what most people want, a filter is placed in front of the sensor when the camera is built. It excludes infrared and ultraviolet frequencies. This type of bandpass filter is sometimes called a “hot mirror.”

To capture the infrared (or UV) spectrum the hot mirror bandpass filter must be removed. This requires camera disassembly.

Once the bandpass hot mirror has been removed, the sensor will be “full spectrum” and respond to UV, visible, and IR frequencies.

Sometimes an IR filter will be added back in place of the bandpass hot mirror that was removed. If not an IR filter can be used on the lens. Either way, the camera will then respond to infrared frequencies only, and provide the pictures we associate with IR photography.

Without removing the bandpass hot mirror, the camera will not respond to infrared.

There are many companies offering conversion services to make a camera work with infrared.

Depending on mechanical skill and patience, it might be possible to do the conversion yourself. There are videos on the internet for various camera models.

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  • @osullic that’s why we can do it. Thanks.
    – Bob Macaroni McStevens
    Jul 2, 2021 at 20:33
  • Thanks for the replies. My camera is a Canon 5D Mark IV. I just tried this again and still getting the same results. In post processing, I open in Raw and its tinted red. I started the processing from there. Nothing works. Channel Swap only turns the image to unflattering results. Its either my camera, the filter, or just me. I attended a class online about this, followed every step of the directions and still a bust. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I just bought a camera that is dedicated to IR. Thanks anyway everyone.
    – Debbie Crowe
    Jul 5, 2021 at 0:10
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    @DebbieCrowe Has your camera been converted to Infrared? If it has not then you cannot make infrared pictures with it.
    – Bob Macaroni McStevens
    Jul 5, 2021 at 1:30

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