It's out of this world! Do you like colours? Do you like infrared? Well, get ready for Velvia on LSD: Kodak EIR will capture the infrared and give you the craziest of colours.
It’s out of this world! Do you like colours? Do you like infrared? Well, get ready for Velvia on LSD: Kodak EIR will capture the infrared and give you the craziest of colours.
Kodak EIR is a (false-) colour infrared transparency film. But what does false-colour infrared mean? Well, since the human eye cannot see infrared light, infrared must be represented by a colour visible to the human eye – on EIR infrared is reproduced as red, red light is reproduced as green, and green is represented as blue. But what about blue light? All three layers are sensitive to blue light so you’ll need to use a yellow filter to cancel the blue (mostly, a lot prefer an orange filter when shooting people.)
To get the best results you have to shoot EIR outside in bright daylight with the ISO set to 200 (if you are going to develop it in E-6 or C-41.) But since your basic light meter won’t measure infrared light you need to bracket to be sure to get decent exposures.
Kodak EIR is supposed to be developed in AR-5 chemicals for most accurate results (if you plan to do this you need to set your camera to an ISO of 100 for bright daylight photography), but since the AR-5 process isn’t standard, you can also use E-6 chemicals for stronger contrast and more saturated colours. You can even cross process it in C-41 to get weird low-saturated results (see a cross-processed EIR picture by Ursula Pfitzer here.)
No matter how you process your film the results will be psychedelic. Plants and foliage which reflects a lot of infrared light, will be red or magenta, while skies will be bright blue and occasionally something bright yellow pops out of the picture. The results are out of this world!
Since this film is no longer in production it is quite hard to get a hold of. Try Ebay or ask your local photo studio if they have some EIR lying around. Alternatively you can buy 70mm Aerographic film (almost identical to the film made by Kodak as an aerial film. This film is rated at ISO 400) trimmed down to 120 format here:http://www.tarquinius.de/.
15 comments
fookshit
i am liking this film already... fantastic gallery!
lomodirk
Hey Lars, cool review and cool results, never thought of trying the EIR but now...damn!
mephisto19
where to get this film?
fookshit
@mephisto:
you can buy here http://www.tarquinius.de/
it is quite pricey though.
toastiesarnies
Wooooohoooooo!
These are great! :)
Were they shot with the yellow filter on?
larslau
@FOOKSHIT:
It's actually quite cheap. Way cheaper than what EIR 35mm goes for on eBay.
larslau
@toastiesamies:
Yep. Yellow filter on all these pics.
I've just gotten some rolls of the 400 ISO 120-film. I'll try to shoot it with an orange and/or a red filter. I've seen some great effects with those filters.
makeyuu
eeh..cool!!
hanspan
looks great!!!
trash-gordon-from-outer-space
can anyone explain to me, why plants reflect so much infrared light?
very interesting review and nice pics!
maddyoulook
whoaaa..
larslau
@trash-gordon-from-outer-space:
Well... I don't think there is a very good explanation. Plants are just reflecting a lot of near-IR. Like snow reflects a lot of visible light.
There is probably some explanation based on evolution. Maybe something like that the chloroplasts in green plants do photosynthesis, and since the chloroplasts can't do any photosynthesis with infrared light (like green and yellow light) it is an advantage to reflect it so the plant does not overheat. So plants evolved to do just that... Just a guess (:
Have a look at an absorbtion spectrum of a green plant here http://www.life.uiuc(…)er/fig5.gif
And remember that infrared light starts at 750 nm -- you'll se that nothing is absorbed.
trash-gordon-from-outer-space
Thank you very much for your efforts. That's very kind.
Your "guess" sounds very reasonable to me.
And since nobody really understands what light is anyway I think that we can stick to this theory :-)
bennici
wonderdude
Color infrared is THE most exciting film for me. I bought several rolls of Dean's Aerochrome last month, and I'm waiting for a great opportunity to shoot it.
Aerochrome III was discontinued a few years ago too, though. Nobody makes color IR film any more. I wonder if Lomography could find a profitable way to manufacture it? (hint, hint)
Wikipedia has good info on CIR, and it also mentions Dean's operation: http://en.wikipedia.(…)photography