In 2022 I took a brief scouting trip down to Tucson, Arizona to look for locations to hold an infrared photography workshop. This shot was from an easily accessible location, the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, northeast of Tucson in the foothills of Mt. Lemmon.
Infrared photography used to be really challenging, but digital cameras have made it quite accessible, especially if black and white is your endgame. All digital cameras have what’s called an IR cut or “hot mirror” filter that covers the imaging sensor. It’s job is to block infrared light from being recorded and contaminating visible color images. If you get your camera modified to remove this filter from your sensor and replace it with one that only lets IR light pass through it (high-pass filter), you now have a camera that can “see” in infrared.
That was exactly the type of camera that I was using on this trip. I’d gotten a Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera and sent it in to Kolari Vision for conversion to infrared. That Z6 was my go-to IR camera until I moved to OM System cameras in late 2023.
Mirrorless cameras offer some significant advantages for infrared photography. They focus more accurately and they allow you to preview the IR image right in the viewfinder. That’s an extremely valuable feature, because not all subjects look great in infrared.
The best subjects for infrared photography include:
Discover why the cacti are white and see how I processed it in color using Adobe Lightroom Classic by upgrading to a paid subscription:
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