Here, again, is proof that Albert procrastinates the wrong things. He breaks program schedule to show you this cool trick, brought to you with the power of two polarizers in front of a digital camera. In order – a linear polarizer (must be linear), circular polarizer, digital camera. Yep, my circular-linear-wannabe-neutral-density filter.

The setting? A traditionally scorching bright sunny day, with the absolute EVs scorching at around 15. Perfect, they say, for outdoor action photography, as every shot will be scorchingly lit with shutter speeds of about 1/250 seconds at most. The subject? A lion dance performance.

Of course, I wanted a different effect than to see the lions being immobilized in mid air. I wanted to convey motion, something you would not be able to do even at F8.0. Cue the crossed polarizers!

Settings? ISO 50, aperture priority (anywhere between F2.6 to F8.0) and EV -1. Pardon the composition of the pictures, I was focusing on getting motion in cool ways.

But first, a peek into the mind of a lion:

This is a regular shot, no movement, no filters:

I then attach the filters, and turn the linear polarizer (the outer ring) to reduce the light coming to the lens, letting the camera to choose a slower shutter speed:

Motion looks better in wide shots.

By chance, I got this; one still, the other two moving.

So that’s how it’s done!

Big drums and heavy beats. How could you not headbang to this?

Nod your head yo.

Another way to make use of shutter speed is to pan with the subject, like so: (Note the Queen T-shirt!)

A faster-moving panned subject.

Show’s over, boys.

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you! (Yes, this is still valid till the day oranges are thrown into rivers.)

(Montage of three different pictures.)

Are you feeling plasticky and stretched?

This would be the only good use for an LCD screen – the light is polarized. Transparent stretched plastic then turns it about, causing funky rainbows… but you need a polarizer in front of your camera to capture this. (The LCD screen was white, with the polarizer turned so the white background became as dark as possible.)

Here’s something for the photographically adventurous – articles from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Check out his flatbed scanner-turned digital camera, high speed photography, strip photography, infra… oh wait, that sounds normal already.

The scanner idea would be awesome if implemented correctly, because with an A4-size 1200 dots-per-inch scanner, you could get a 14031×9921 size scan, or a 139 megapixel camera.

So I met Fazri for more camera geeking out.

This is his decked out FZ30, this time, with more filters and step rings than before. I’m not sure anymore what the order was, but I think it was a (edited) 58mm telephoto lens, 58mm macro lens, 58mm Hoya linear polarizer, 58mm to 52mm step ring, 52mm Hoya circular polarizer, 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, (then here comes my stuff) 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, 52mm Raydamn linear polarizer, 52mm Hoya 25A red filter, 52mm Raydawn circular polarizer, (and back to Fazri’s) 52mm to 55mm step ring, Panasonic DMC FZ30. Phew.

Similiar setup, on mine.

He placed his FZ30 on a tripod and took long exposures, with the strobe flash used to uh, expose… me. I was chosen because I accidentally wore a bright, easy to expose shirt.

I have reached Duhvana.

Effects of eating a red mushroom.

Fazri and I saw lightning in KLCC Park. I used his Canon Powershot A95 to get this, on a 4 second exposure. He set up his FZ30 on 60 second exposure, but the chances of us striking gold lightning striking when taking a long exposure was very small. Most of the time, the lightning would strike during the noise reduction part (which is as long as the long exposure itself!)

The buildings somewhat look like batteries.

Addendum: From my experiments with circular and linear polarizer combinations, I found that the most useful combination would be camera, circular, circular, linear. Turning the innermost circular would function as a polarizer; turning the middle circular was a warming/cooling filter, and turning the outermost linear would go from neutral density to infrared filter. We did not get a bright sunny environment to test the effects of inserting the red filter anywhere in between. Two circulars would be a warming/cooling filter; two linears, a neutral density to infrared filter.

So I bought a 52mm Raydawn linear polarizer for yet more photography experiments. Who cares that I went to Zouk on Wednesday, Hartamas on Friday and Saturday, and Midvalley on Sunday? Who cares that I wassup guys that girls had major crushes on since Form 2 (no, not you, stim-girl)?

Well, apparently, nobody, so I’ll just put more trippy pictures. At least you guys tell me you think it’s cool, even though you don’t comment.

Anyway, in the arrangement of camera, linear polarizer, circular polarizer, I was able to get a manual white balance of varying precision! The right-most picture is without both polarizers on. The other two are the extremities of blue-ness and orange-ness I can get by turning the circular polarizer only. Turning both (meaning you turn the linear polarizer) will function as a normal polarizer.

We now bring you to Site A, on the pedestrian bridge of the Kelana Jaya PUTRA LRT station. I took the following pictures between 11:10am and 11:30am. No, I do not go out just to take pictures; I was waiting for the bus. The recorded shutter speed was 1/250 seconds, F8.

Now we get funky! In the order of camera, circular polarizer, linear polarizer you get something like an infrared filter. Turning the circular polarizer functions as a normal polarizer. I had to use Manual mode, F8, 10 seconds to get about the same histogram.

Now, insert a red filter, so the order is camera, circular polarizer, red filter, then linear polarizer. Fiddling around, the infrared-glowing objects are distinguished by varying levels of redness. This was 1/3 second, F2.6 (equivalent to F8.0 at 2.66 seconds).

Note that at certain angles, there is a stain of color on certain edges of the circle. I do not know the science behind this, but snap in black and white and you won’t see it.

I don’t remember which angles they were, so just play around with both dials to get effects.

The only picture with any levels adjustment was the first one. The others are only sharpen and resize. Load the pictures into Photoshop and hit Auto Levels to see what they could become!

In case you forgot what a normal infrared picture looks like, here’s one with just the Hoya R72 filter.

Left: 1/2 seconds F2.6 with camera then CPL then PL, 1/2000 seconds F4.0 (or 1/4000 seconds F2.6) without filters on Shutter priority mode. That makes a 2000x ND, 11 stops.

The geekier among thou would have noticed that going from 1/250 to 10 seconds (in the fourth picture) is a slowing down of 2500x. That would be equivalent to a neutral density filter of 2500x, or over 11 stops! Add that you have the flexibility of dialling in the density! Of course, neutral density filters do not stain the picture or change its color; so, when dialling in, it goes from a neutral density filter of 4x and ends as an violet-tinted infrared filter. The sweet spot in between, where color is not changed, might be less.

This infrared webcam project is thanks to Syefri, whose old webcam was used!

From left to right, then top to bottom:

• Webcam, before.
• The webcam is screwed. I mean, unscrewed.
• I then had to pull apart the webcam, and unscrew the screws to remove the lens mount covering the CCD sensor.
• Left to right: 52mm Hoya R72 infrared pass filter, circuitboard with the CCD exposed in the middle, the lens mount that covers the CCD, and the black part of a 35mm film negative.
• I then used a screwdriver to pop the infrared cut filter (the blue glass piece) out of its slot on the lens mount.
• I then cut the negative so it could sit in front of the lens mount, where the lens was then screwed on.

Your webcam may vary; the infrared cut filter may be painted on! This webcam had a manual focus lens; from outside, in order, it would be the manual focus lens, followed by its lens mount (with the infrared cut filter), followed by the circuitboard (with the CCD on it) and another circuitboard, and finally, the back of the webcam casing.

The infrared pass filter is held up to the webcam; as you can see on screen, it is transparent!

Flourescent lamps do not emit much hot infrared light, so I had to use a tungsten bulb so people could see me on webcam.

Now, for more science!

CCDs can capture normal light and infrared light. Human eyes only see normal light. However, infrared light stains the picture with purple highlights, so webcams and digital cameras have an infrared cut filter installed. I had to remove that, and put an infrared pass filter (namely the film negative) to block out normal light and let only infrared light through. On my Canon Powershot A520 however, the warranty has not finished and I do not dare operate on such a digital camera that is not cheap, so I use a Hoya R72 filter (infrared pass filter). Internally, its infrared cut filter still lets a little infrared light in, so I can get sunny exposures in less than one second.

Anyway, does anyone have a cheap old working 1 megapixel digicam? I’d like to buy it from you to make an infrared camera!