After upgrading to the Fujifilm X-T3, my old X-T1 wasn’t used any longer and started to collect dust. I also stumbled upon infrared photography by Simon Marsden, and was immediately fascinated by it. Since I also did more and more black and white work, I decided to convert the X-T1 to infrared.
There are several options when converting a camera to infrared. If you’re interested, Don Komarechka covers the basics in this video well. I did a conversion with a 830nm filter (“Deep BW”), which basically makes it a black and white camera. It gives you high contrast black and white images, which is just what I wanted.
The pier at a local small harbour // Fujifilm X-T1 ISO 200 23 mm f/4.0 1/250
I received the converted camera and went to a small local harbour for some test shots. I noticed the slight disadvantage with the Deep BW filter: Less light reaches the sensor, and therefore you need longer shutter speeds. The shots in this post were done handheld in the middle of an overcast day. As you can see it went fine doing these images handhold, but with less light or smaller apertures a tripod might be necessary.
Fujifilm X-T1 ISO 400 23mm f/4.0 1/250 sec
Although it’s already May, we recently got fresh snow and it still looks like winter. Therefore you’re not going to see these typical infrared images with bright, glowing foliage right now, although that might change during the summer.
Fujifilm X-T1 ISO 400 23 mm f/2.8 1/250 sec
Without having BW images from a normal camera as comparison it might not be obvious that these images were made with an infrared camera. But so far I do like the BW look. There have only be done basic adjustments in Lightroom.
It’s too early to conclude how well the converted camera works as I only have used it for two days. But the first impression is positive. I actually like the fact you have to take images in BW, as you are not distracted by colour and need to work on your composition. The following weeks will show in what direction this will lead me and I’ll post some more images.
…and in case you wonder, focusing worked just fine here / Fujifilm X-T1 ISO 400 23 mm f/2.8 1/250 sec