Infrared With Fujifilm FinePix 1300

I succeeded in modifying a Fujifilm FinePix 1300 to shoot in infrared. The camera is an ancient 1.3-megapixel model. I bought it used from the Palo Alto Goodwill for $6.99 plus tax, but since it was Sunday, all donated items were 30% off and I got it for just over five dollars.

It struck me as possible that the camera might have no high-pass filter at all, or at least an ineffective high-pass, which would mean than I could attach a low-pass filter to the objective side of the lens. This wouldn't be ideal, since filters tend to scatter light, and this scattering will of course degrade the image most severely if it occurs far from the CCD. However, attaching a filter to the objective side is a hell of a lot easier than attaching one to the CCD side. I held a weak low-pass filter in front of the lens, and took this shot:

Based upon the relative brightness of the sky and darkness of the foliage, I guessed that the FinePix still had some sort of high-pass filter, and although I wouldn't call it particularly effective, it was enough to ruin the IR sensitivity. My low-pass filters aren't terribly good either, so a low-pass on the objective side and a high-pass on the CCD side wouldn't give very good results.

I disassembled the camera and switched the filters. This took approximately six hours. In the process, I got a hell of a shock from the flash unit capacitor. However, since I had already spent four hours by that time, I was more concerned about the possibility that I might have acted as a conductor and discharged the flash unit into some sensitive electronics and destroyed the camera. Fortunately, when I re-assembled it, it worked well enough. The electromechanical components were extremely crude: the camera has two f/stop settings. There is a strip of metal with two holes in it which slides in front of one of the lens components. The larger hole corresponds to f/5.6, and I imagine the smaller hole is f/12 or so. To change f/stop, the strip of metal is simply moved about five millimeters by a solenoid.

When I reassembled the camera, I found it gave good IR images, and shot fairly deep into the IR. There is no true manual mode, but the camera does have an adjustable exposure setting, with settings ranging from +2 to -1.3 stops in increments of 0.3 [in layman's terms, if the default exposure is defined as X joules, and an exposure adjustment of +n is set, then the exposure is X * (2^n) joules]. This allows indirect control of shutter speed, and therefore makes infrared HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging possible. The first images I shot were conventional. Click an image to see it larger.
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"Charleston Road"

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"Space Heater"
This is a photograph of the elements in my space heater. The elements do not glow visibly when the heater is on, but they are hot enough to incandesce in the infrared. Similarly, electric burners will glow brightly in the infrared even when not hot enough to glow visibly. I spent several minutes photographing my stove in total darkness, but the pictures did not come out as well as this, and my housemate was rather confused. As he does not speak English, I had difficulty explaining myself.

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"House On Charleston Street"

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"Reflection In Vehicle"
This image shows the reflection of my vehicle in the side of a vehicle adjacent. Note that glass is highly opaque in infrared; this is to be expected. The interior of a car tends to become much hotter than the outside of the car on a sunny day precisely because glass is transparent to visible light but opaque to infrared: visible light enters the car through the windows, strikes the interior, and is converted to infrared, which cannot escape and builds up inside the vehicle, warming it. My driver's window was down.

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"Streets of San Mateo"
Note that all the glass in this image (the car windows, the building windows, and even the stoplights) appears jet black due to IR absorbance.

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"V4L"
The handsign "V" means "V4L" or "Volvo For Life". One can produce a full sequence of handsigns by holding up one's left hand and (in sequence) making a "V" with the pointer and middle finger, then holding up four fingers with the thumb folded back to indicate "4", and then making an "L" as described in the Smashmouth song: "She was lookin' kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an 'L' on her forehead...". Note that the shirt I was wearing in this image was black in the visible spectrum. Many fabrics that absorb visible light reflect infrared, and so appear white.

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The following images were shot in high dynamic range; click to view larger:
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"Foliage On My Fence"

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"V4L-HDR-IR"

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"The CalTRAIN # 72"

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"This Picture Reminds Me Of The Song 'Dreaming Tree' And By Connection Reminds Me Of The Dave Matthews Phase I Went Through In High School"

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Peas out bros. I'm working on modifying another thrift-store camera (HP PhotoSmart 850, 4.1 megapixels, kickass lens) to shoot in IR.

Purple Haze

Purple Haze (though the color is variable depending on the white balance; I'm using 5900K)

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I recently tore apart my point-and-shoot camera (Canon Powershot a590), pulled out the high-pass filter, and installed a low-pass filter. The low-pass is opaque below approximately 800 nanometers (in the visible at least...I imagine it may not be UV-opaque but the glass takes care of that- as the saying goes, you can't get a tan through glass).

Unfortunately the low-pass I used tended to scatter the IR, and while adjusting it I destroyed the camera. Point-and-shoot cameras are not designed to be user-serviced, much less user-modified. Regardless, it was old, and today I am going to try the thrift store/craigslist circuit and look for something similar. Really, 3 megapixels is all I need, since the wavelength of IR is so damn long...no sense in having pixels if they're shorter than the wavelength you're shooting with.

Below are several photos I shot in IR. Really, I would like to shoot in UV, and I imagine that if I could make a set of lenses out of sapphire or fused quartz rather than glass I could get some UV sensitivity, but that's a fairly expensive proposition.

These images are not post-processed whatsoever. They have a purple cast; apparently the blue pixels on the point-and-shoot are the most sensitive to 800+ nm. light, even though they're not very sensitive to long-wave visible.

It is worthwhile to note that, even when the camera was functioning well enough for me to get these shots, there were some negative effects of switching the filters...besides severe blur, the switch caused the autofocus to fail and the lightmeter to become useless, since it is calibrated to visible light. The viewfinder still worked since it has an optical pathway separate from the objective lens, but since people can't see IR, the viewfinder isn't very useful because it doesn't show one what a given scene is likely to look like when photographed. In the case of a DSLR, one would have to use live view…in the case of a DSLR without live view, one would truly be shooting in the dark.

I think Erik would like IR photography. It is low-fi. If I find a few $20, four-year-old cameras and more than one survives my conversion attempts, I'll hook him up.

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Update: I managed to convert an old 1.3-megapixel Fujifilm camera to IR, and it gives very much better images than these. Unfortunately, I can’t get them off the camera since it uses a proprietary USB cable which I haven’t been able to find at any electronics stores. I’ll check some surplus places tomorrow; if worse comes to worse I’ll just buy a SmartMedia card reader.

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These images may be clicked and viewed larger.

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"Chairs My Housemate Uses To Dry Towels And Such"

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"Close Foliage"

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"Fence Shot At ISO 1600"

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"Shooting In Traffic"

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"Volvo For Life (V4L)"

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"West Charleston Street"

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Also, here are two photographs I didn't shoot but rather found in a place called "the internet". These are absolutely exemplary advertisements. The first is a professional shot; the second is a screen capture from New Moon which was altered by a fan. It demonstrates the kind of grass-roots, pro-vampire, pro-Volvo movement that America needs. The shop where I get my Volvo serviced has a gigantic poster of the professional print.
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Professional:

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Fan art:

Critical

The So-Called-Sour: Five Short Poghems

The So-Called-Sour: Short Poghems

1.
RIGHT NOW I AM HAVING TROUBLE WITH DIRECTIONS
like right
and
left

2.
FIFTEEN DOLLARS OF PAPER TOWEL
Is it LSD or is it
Mac OS-X?
Is it PCP or is it
Microsoft Windows?
I call a 15% cut when Steve
Jobs uses this in the next
“switch”
commercial.

3.
THE CALTRAIN #61
I see him in the post
office. Neither
of us have any mail he tells me he is
waiting for his subscription and I
ask him what he subscribes to for I am
in
shock. Stanford’s library
has subscriptions to everything under
the sun. Every periodical in every language even
playboy
in braille.
He is waiting for The
Economist and
since he is
paying for it I suppose he does need to brush
up on economics.

4.
FEAR
“It’s staining my teeth.”
“But there’s no mirror in here. You can’t know that. The only way you can know is by looking at my teeth and noticing they’re getting stained. They are, aren’t they?”
“Yeah."
"I don't care."
"Well, I try to drink it so it doesn’t touch my teeth. But I think my teeth are getting stained. I think they might be getting stained. I fear my teeth are getting stained.”
“Well, they are. Your fear has come to pass.”

5.
INSTRUCTIONS
The salesman is
explaining
how to install a hottub he points
at the fiberglass liner leaning vertically against
the showroom wall. “Now the first
step is to
turn it sideways.”

seems like we are all really far away

bobby is like, in denver, jesus
i feel like chris is doing some kind of sweet frat convention
g is like, in the midwest, it seems. hopefully not getting arrested..
aa just graduated. he is somewhere
i am in seattle
i feel far away

LOL

http://seriousstache.com/2010/03/18/oakland-based-pop-ster-band-moon-roof-debuts-sweet-new-jam/#comments

stone river bar and grill

In the Cascade mountains, about an hour outside of Seattle, a road wnids through a gray-green valley. The forest here is dark and cold. Trees reach for the infrequent sunlight. The infrequent traveler stops at the only gas station for 47 miles. He's greeted by the beautiful oldest daughter of a local ski area owner.

***

Do you have peppermint candies? he asked.

I don't think so, she said. She took he gum out of her mouth and winds it around her finger.

He noticed that she is looking at the internet on her laptop.

Do you have wi-fi? he asked.

No. Why do you want peppermint candies? she asked.

There the only kind of breath freshener I like, and I'm meeting someone.

It's getting late for dinner. She looked at the clock above the chip display. It was 8:30.

Is it a woman? she asked. He was surprised by this. He thought she was trying to get him to leave.

Yes, yes it is, he responded.

Are you taking her to the Grill?

The Stone River Bar and Grill was the only restaurant for miles. It sat on a rock ledge above a sharp bend in the river. As the sun set, light split the valley and filled the large windows of the Grill with orange blocks of color. The dark interior of the place glowed in the hour of sunset and the people who lived nearby gathered to talk about the news of the town. Below them, past hundreds of feet of evergreen trees, the river ran deep and cold.

Yes, he said. I'm from Hollywood and I'm meeting this woman for dinner. I think I want her to be in my next film.

Wow, said the girl. She seemed bored again. She looked at her computer.

Something stirred in heart of the director. He had been traveling all day: first from his house outside of LA, then to the airport, then to Seattle, and now far outside of down, into this little valley of darkness and beauty.

Have you ever acted? he asked her.

Never, she said, unwinding her gum and throwing it away.

You're going to be late for you meeting, she said. He looked at her directly and leaned against her counter.

I don't care, he said.

Do you want to see the river? she asked.

He nodded. She closed her computer.

Behind the gas station, she took his hand and led him downhill, into the trees. The night was dark. Enough light from the road came through in yellow columns.

Soon, he could hear the rushing river. The forest was darker and damper. He tried to see her face, but he could only make out her moving limbs and her hand, rougher than he expected.

He looked up for the first time and saw raged tendrils against the blue night sky, sifted by clouds. He noticed a fading moon crescent, and shrived reverently.

I have come here for many years, said the girl, more to the forest than ti him, it seemed.

He knew nothing he could say in response.

We're here, she said.

The rushing water was somewhere below them. Forest seemed enormous and indifferent. The moon above smiled hopelessly.

The girl let go of his hand. He waited for her to do something. She sat down. He knew she might ask him about film. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to touch her.

She said nothing for a long time. Their eyes adjusted. They could see large boulders in the whitewater, erratics moved down-stream by glaciers.

This is what I was looking for, he said finally.

She said nothing.

What do you do down here? he asked.

I swim, she said.

In this water?

I'm used to it, she said. She started taking off her pants.

It's too cold for me, he said.

I'm too cold for you, she said, and touched his cheek with her hand.

***

High above them in a dim dining room, a tall woman sits alone. Her second glass of Merlot is 1/3 full. He face is invisible behind layers of hope. All around her, faceless townspeople sip salty cups of clam chowder. The promising young director is nowhere to be seen.

Forensic Brotography and Three Short Poghems

Forensic Brotography and Three Short Poghems
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Bobby wants to know if the shy bro on the right in “Two Shy Bros Near The Palo Alto Baseball Diamond” was “looking down” or “tipping his head down to look at you not through his sunglasses in a 'tres cool' manner?”

The truth is that this bro was glaring at me over his sunglasses because he was ‘tres camera shy’. However, you don’t have to take my word for it. As I’ve mentioned, I almost always photograph human subjects multiple times, and I photographed the shy bros six different times. Two of the images have substantially higher exbroosure and show the bro’s facial expression. I have included these below because, like Ellen Zarter always said, it is better to show than to tell.
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Bobby has prompted the invention of forensic brotography by challenging me to reconstruct events that occurred at the “scene of the crime” where the crime in question was “broing out”.

Also, here are three short poghems.
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Poghem 1: “Julian Casablancas”

what a name
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Poghem 2: “There Is A Woman At Arillaga Gym In A Burqua On The Treadmill Next To Me And She Isn’t Running Very Fast But I Can’t Say I’d Run Much Faster If I Was Wearing What She Was Wearing”

why?
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Poghem 3: “Just Bought Some Spinach With An Expiration Date Past My Graduation Date”

i don’t think it will
really last
until the 26th, and i'll eat
it before then but as
Erik and Christiana
say,
Jesus.

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Peas / spinach out bros.

CalTRAIN: The Holy Roller

Coronado, San Diego:

You are swimming with a young woman with dark hair who hates seaweed, and when she swims in the ocean she will sometimes grab a piece near her and throw it as far from herself as she can. She is an almost perfect image of futility: it is true that she changes the distribution of seaweed slightly, but the ocean is so vast that it is effectively a reservoir of seaweed. The effect she has on it is negligible.

For my part, the seaweed does not bother me, but after swimming for some time I feel cold. Suppose I think to myself: “Here I swim through the Pacific. My blood is warmer than its water. Therefore, heat flows from me into it, and as the ocean cools me, so do I warm the ocean.” This is correct. I am warming the ocean, just as she is rearranging its seaweed. Yet my thinking is an even better image of futility than hers: the ocean is so much larger than I am that the effect I have on its temperature is negligible.

So the ocean is a reservoir for temperature and seaweed. The CalTRAIN is a reservoir of momentum, of mass multiplied by velocity. A nepotist stands in the graded crossing at West Charleston Road and is struck by a morning express train as it passes as eighty-seven miles per hour. As his body explodes in a goddamn mess against the steel of the train, he thinks: “Let us take these tracks as stationary, as our reference-frame. When the train collides with me, momentum must be conserved. Therefore, I will slow the train with my body, for I am stationary relative to the tracks while the CalTRAIN is moving at eighty-seven miles per hour”. He is right: he will slow the train, and I will warm the ocean, and she will re-arrange the seaweed, but in all cases negligibly.


That is what I wanted to capture with this series of images. You can click on them to see them larger.


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"CalTRAIN: Holy Roller"
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"Back Of Suited Bro"
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"Profile Of Suited Bro"
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"Bro Engaged In Solving Or Perhaps Contemplating A Crossword Puzzle"
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"Broette Whose Unchill Friend Threatened Me"
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"Broette Reading 'The Glass Menagerie' "
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"Bro In Downright Delightful Pose"
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"White Bearded Bro"
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"Two Shy Bros Near The Palo Alto Baseball Diamond"
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"Broette Reading 'Grief Counseling' "
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WARNING: The following two images are extremely explicit. If you are uncomfortable with vivid bro-oriented imagery, or if you have a personal or family history of broing out, I recommend that you do not continue. For medical reasons, you should consult a physician before continuing if you have played beer pong or used Axe Body Spray within the last two weeks, due to risk of interaction.
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"Facedown Like A Playingcard, Part I Of II"
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"Facedown Like A Playingcard, Part II Of II"
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Poems Inspired By Stanford, Although “Inspired” Seems The Wrong Word

Poems Inspired By Stanford, Although “Inspired” Seems The Wrong Word
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It is the eve of my graduation. My last day of class is March 12th, 2010; as grades are not due from professors for some time after that, the actual date of my graduation will be March 24th.
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Poem 1: “Hitchhiker”

Is in a strange
rush
Almost sits on my camera bag I
move
Looks at my tripod
sees
All the steel and levers and straps I’ve added
asks
“Are you some kind of crippled leg-person?”
hears
“No, I’m fine. My leg
is
fine.”
Then says “Oh,
it's
a tripod.” Puts
down the passenger side window.
The weather
is
fine.
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Poem 2: “CatchPhrase (TM)”

“Um, it’s…it’s something Stanford students don’t do.”
“Have sex?”
He’s wrong.
That word would never be in CatchPhrase (TM),
It’s too easy. You could just say
“It’s something that Bobby does to pass on his genes” and
give it away.
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Poem 3: “Bus”

Bus full of people
Going?
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Poem 4: “Photography”

She has her own camera so she can
Take pictures while she’s drunk, and does
Have a job ready, chemical engineer on
A drilling platform, loves it will
Make much more money than me she’s
Much smarter. “What do you think
would have happened if we had majored in
photography?” I ask though I don’t
even know if you can. “It would be
a lot different I think I would be
crazier this stuff drives me crazy” she
holds up a picture and says she can
never get it right, isn’t ever
pleased with it, not for all the hours that she spends in
Photoshop (TM).
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Poem 5: “Guest”

I wouldn’t pay for it but I have a car she has a guest pass and
I laugh when the woman behind the counter asks
If I want a spray-on tan after I get out of the tanning bed she
Tells me it’s good if you’re going on vacation calls it
A cocktail.
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Poem 6: “Competitive”

I’m so competitive I have the opposite
problem. I have
trouble
pissing if there isn’t someone next to me.
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golf

im 16 years old
on a golf course
in the foot hills
of the cascades.
the air is gray
and calm, but
mostly hopeless.

i carry my bag
of clubs. I have
headphones on.
the other guys
are calling
each other faggot
or nigger, i
can't remember
which.

i'm listening
to interpol.
i'm way passed
depression. i
don't want to
kill myself:
at that age it
already seemed
pointless to
die.

i was
80% sure
i would be
unhappy forever,
so golf didn't
seem so bad.

tongue twister

flippant philathropists fondle phalluses during fellatio.

Sorry I Like To Play With Saturation

Everyone in San Francisco wants to be photographed because everyone in San Francisco wants to be famous. You may be thinking “Now, A-squared, that can't be literally true. There are millions of people in San Francisco. Surely you are making a generalization. Surely not EVERY single person in the City wants to be famous...”

You are right. Not everyone in SF wants to be famous. A tiny percentage already are famous and just want to become more famous.

On Sunday, February 29th, I photographed 261 different people in the streets of SF over about 8 hours. I am returning the camera I have borrowed to Stanford on Wednesday, March 3rd, and will therefore not be doing any more photography until I start working full time and have a few thousand dollars to drop on a DSLR. I am starting to process the images; this will probably take about two months.

Here are two of my first shots. I've played with the saturation, obviously. Sorry I like to poweruse/prosume.



I am very fond of the reflection of the City in this bro's glasses.

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This broette is exactly like Bobby. She skates, has shiny sunglasses, is hot, and is completely black-and-white.

Peas out bros.