The Story Behind the Photo
June: Between the Lines
by Ron Steinke
Ten months ago:
I got a full spectrum conversion done on my camera right after I purchased it so I could shoot visible, night and infrared (IR) photography. I went on a short 2 mile hike and at the end was the rail road track. I took a few pictures of the tracks with my 720nm filter on the camera. Being the first time I shot IR, I thought the pictures looked good but after I got more experience I realized they didn’t.
Five months later…
I saw the between the line assignment and thought of the above location with the tracks. I had to wait a few months for the weather to be what I needed for the shot. I knew I wanted to get close to the ground and needed to shoot F2.8 to F4 so I needed to focus stack, a little breezy also that day. I can’t shoot IR at f8 or higher otherwise hot spots appear in the image, one of the downsides with IR. I used Lightroom or Photoshop to focus stack the images. With IR it’s typical to do a color swap of the Red/Blue channels, which I did. I then used Lightroom to white balance, turned the sky black, adjust some settings and convert to black and white. The last edit was to use Photoshop, dodge and burn the trees to bring out the contrast in the branches and leaves.
I used a Canon EOS R full spectrum conversion with a Hoya 720nm filter, F4, on a tripod, iso:100, 1/125 sec at 35mm (Tamron 24-70 G2)