Lomography

Rollei Infrared (120, 400 iso) User-Review
written by dfred on August 7th, 2009 , 13 comments (7 votes)

The Rollei Infrared is the film you need for your newest experience in photography. It is a high speed panchromatic B&W film with special infrared sensitivity up to 820 nm with filtration.

How to Use and What to Expect

There are two different ways to use it:

• To get a good IR effect you must use a deep red or R72 filter. The R72 filter is really kinda opaque (you will loose approximately 4 to 5 stops so your iso 400 is gonna be around 12 to 25 iso only) and because of that you’ll probably need to make long exposures if you don’t want to get a black picture and also to get a strong IR Effect. The outcome you’ll have will be black and white and all the things that got IR sensitivity- such as the sky, water, people will appear intensely white.

• You can also use this film for a basic Black and White picture. Shooting this at 400 iso will give you some very fine grain, superb detail in highlights and shadows.

Some Tools Needed
It’s recommended to use a tripod for a steady picture with a cable release system, IR Filter as Hoya R72 or #89B.

Loading
ROLLEI IR 400 can be loaded and removed from the camera in subdued lighting conditions. Complete darkness is not required!

Exposure Times
In full mid summer sun with a Hoya R72 exposure times of around 1 second is a good starting point, doubling those times when winter comes. If it is cloudy, try around 4 seconds exposure, if you are in the shade,8-16 seconds or longer would do. This of course means a tripod is needed, and a cable release system is quite handy as well. One thing to keep in mind is that the reciprocity factor with IR film is pretty high and it is better to over expose a little bit rather than under exposing. As an example in deep shade late in the day I have gone as long as 60 seconds. Also remember that you need to double your exposure times to move up a stop. So 8 seconds is only 1 stop more than 4 seconds, and 16 seconds is only 2 stops while 32 would only be 3.

Storage
It is recommend not to leave the film material exposed in direct sunlight, strong heat or relative high humidity.
Cooled stored film material should not be used until film is warmed up and thawed. For unexposed film, Up to 24 months in cold storage by 8° C is recommend while for exposed rolls, please keep film in cold condition, processing as soon as possible is recommend.

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I’ve used Diana F+ 75mm and 38mm lens, Rollei Infrared (120, 400 iso), Hoya R72, Gorillapod, Cable Release on shots found in this gallery.

I hope you found this brief article helpful.
Enjoy!