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Near IR photography and video with the Nano+

Paul43

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I performed some preliminary tests on the Nano+ camera today to see if the camera is sensitive to ~800nm IR light using a Tiffen #87 IR filter. My first experiment was to see if I could see a 800nm IR LED from a remote control with the Nano. Answers is yes, quite clearly. I then turned off all the lights and placed the 52mm diameter Tiffen #87 IR filter flush against the face of the Nano+ camera. I was still able to clearly see the IR beam from the remote control. Next test is to try this out during the day, outside in the sun and see if I can get some clear images with good ISO and shutter speed values.

In the past I have modified various digital cameras to remove either the IR blocking filter or the internal hot mirror to allow near-IR photography. This allows you to cut through the haze that you see in the distance when looking towards the horizon and produce some interesting contrast reversals when looking at plants and some synthetic textiles. Usually you remap the IR to another color channel if you are using a filter to pass some visible light or convert to black and white if you are shooting a pure IR filter.

Has anyone else had any experience using their Nano for IR photography or video? Any suggestions on where I might find a blank lens holder so I can cut down one of my surplus IR gel filters and place it onto the Nano's camera?
 
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I manually placed the IR filter flush against the Nano+ lens today and took some video outside as I walked around holding the drone. Moderate success. Was able to get some glowing trees in infrared but it was very cloudy so not very much IR light or black sky contrast. It was impossible to get clear images using this method but it looks like it should work with the appropriate filter holder to mount the filter directly to the camera. Shooting in manual mode and RAW should allow post processing to get some good IR video.
 
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I bought a Freewell polarizer this week and removed the polarizer and replaced it with a piece of IR filter material. I used some black double sided sticky tape to mount it and then paint over all the edges with a super black photographic matte black paint. Attached the IR filter to the gimbal and used some small slivers of matte black light blocking tape to seal around the filter.

Went outside on a partly sunny day and powered up the Nano. Took some pictures and video with mixed results. I was able to get some IR images with the chlorophyll in pine the trees glowing. I had to use manual mode to get close to proper exposures. The Auto modes for both video and photos wasn't working well at all.

Unfortunately it appears that there is a hot mirror or IR blocking filter in the Nano+ camera blocking most of the IR light since I had to use an ISO of 3200 and 1/30 shutter in the middle of the day to get an image. For reference, I have a Canon DSLR that I modified to remove the internal hot mirror to use for IR photography and I can take properly exposed photos with iso 100, 1/300 shutter, and F8 aperture in similar conditions.
The IR filter I used passes 90% of the light beyond 700nm and only passes 1% of the visible below 650nm.

There appears to be some strange optical effect occurring which causes the center of the frame to appear brighter and a different hue. You can see it in the included pictures. It appears in the sky, on the glowing trees, and on the ground bare ground in other pictures I took.
Has anyone experienced any strange color shifts in the central part of their natural light images like you see in these pictures? Any ideas what might cause this? Things to try to correct for it?

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I had a camera sent off to lifepixel for a conversion. Mine is a D200 and some Nikon lenses were prone to this. They had a recommended list of lenses that were good and some that were really bad and some that could only be used in certain conditions to have good repeatable result. I haven't played with my much at all but I don't think the lens is replaceable and doesn't look good for predictable results.
 
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