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!

While crossing the junction between Desa Sri Hartamas and Sri Hartamas, I found the perfect prop for a nice long exposure shot. This wasn’t the effect I wanted, but the dude waiting there was cool. This effect was brought to you by Manual mode with 10 second exposure, F8.0, ISO 50, and a circular polarizer to drop it one stop.

And this, a successful attempt at the effect – same settings, but I changed to a 15 second exposure because I kept miscounting how long the green light would stay on. I could actually get green, yellow and red in a 6 second exposure, if I took the picture 2 seconds before it turned yellow, but I was lazy to wait (having miscounted a few traffic light cycles before), so I cheated and did a 15 second one so that the chances of me getting a green-yellow-red shot were higher. Pictures were also darkened to add drama.

If you want to do this same effect, I suggest you find a junction which switches lights fast, like a small T-junction out of town. It would help to have a railing or a power supply box to use as a makeshift tripod. Better still, zoom in on a traffic light for artistic effect.

Once again, yet another photography experiment. This time: What is the aperture range of a human eye?

I took the average naked human eye, without any contact lenses, perfect 20/20 vision. Aye, it was I!

Left: In the darkness, my iris opened, making my pupil wider. I flashed to take a picture. The aperture was calculated by measuring the diameter of my iris (109 pixels on the original image) and the diameter of my pupil (63 pixels). 109 divided by 63 gave an aperture of F1.73.
Right: I pointed a table lamp at my face and took a picture without flash. This was F4.48. Thus, I could conclude that my range was approximately 3 stops.

What about shutter speed? It is said that humans can only really distinguish up to 30 frames per second.