IR vs. Non-IR

On Saturday, thanks to good navigation from my brother-in-law, I was able to make a trip up to a famous spot on Queen Anne Hill for taking pictures of downtown Seattle, after our long day at FanFest. It was a beautiful day, clear and sunny, even if it was a bit cold. I took a few pictures in between battling battery issues with my D1H -- a notorious battery hog. I grabbed the tripod, and slapped on the IR filter, and tried to grab a few IR shots of the scene. Unfortunately, there's a loss of sharpness in IR, especially if you're having to shoot with an 8-second exposure.

Here's the scene, converted to sepia, without the IR filter:



Here's the same scene, a few minutes later (obviously with the sun having set further), but on a tripod, not quite at the same level as the original, and with a MUCH longer exposure time (8 seconds):



A couple of things to note: 1) The pollution in the sky is invisible in IR. The sky is clearer than what was seen with the naked eye, and it's darker, too. 2) the shadows have a much different quality to them.

While this scene doesn't entirely demonstrate the full effects of IR, it's interesting to see a comparison between the two images.