ABSTRACT
Film and digital sensor sensitivity to light falls away as the wavelengths of light get longer than deep red. This is the infrared region. Digital cameras have internal filters that prevent too much infrared light from affecting the image. Some early cameras were not fitted with these filters and relied on the user fitting a ‘hot mirror’ filter over the lens. Ilford is once again producing batches of SFX near-red film that can be used with a deep red filter. It has many of the qualities of infrared imaging without the film loading and processing issues of true infrared. People tend to associate the infrared look with the very distinctive images produced with the discontinued Kodak High Speed Infrared film; high contrast, very grainy, with distinctive white foliage, black skies and a diffuse, ghostly quality to the image caused by internal reflections within the film.
