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Question: What kind of IR filter would I need to take colored pictures with a digital camera!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
To get the false far-out colors seen in IR photography you could use a # of filters, BUT!.!.!. unless you have a camera made to see in IR, you will be hard pressed to achieve any of what you may have seen!.

ALL digital cameras are VERY sensitive to IR!. In order for the IR to not mess with your normal shooting, the camera manufactures put a IR cut off filter over the chip in the camera!. If you should take a old web cam apart you will see a blue/green glass filter in front of either the lens its self or in front of the chip, in the web cam!. A similar filter is over every chip in every digital camera made for regular photography!.

Now, back to your needs!.!. A RM-90 (Hoya) or 87c (Kodak) filter is a IR filter!. It looks black to the naked eye but only passes IR above what the human eye can see!. Now, if you put one of these filters over your camera's lens you WILL get IR shots, how they look tho depends on how strong the built in filter in your camera is!.!.!.!

If you flood the camera with IR, you WILL over-power the built in filter that is NOT wanting IR!.!. You will NOT hurt your camera, but you will drive it nuts here!. Because of the built in cut off filter, many of your exposures will have to be in the M mode and maybe even a few seconds each!. Your images may be quite grainy looking and not too sharp!. In color they may look very pinkish if not red from the filter it's self!. BW mode will look much better!. Here the trees will be "white" with black sky's, but you may have a lot of noise, grain, because your pushing your cameras sensor into overdrive, forcing IR thru the blocking filter (some anyhow) and the exposure will show this!.

True IR filters are NOT cheap!. 49 and 52mm size filters are easy $100 bucks now a days!. Years ago they cost under $20 bucks, the same as any ol' filter back then!.!. WHY they went up is anyones guess, but it is demand for something "special"!.!. and the manufactures think you have to pay 5 or 10 X what it really costs!.

Do a Google on IR films or plastics sheets (not actual film to go into a camera but sheets of plastic "film" you can cut)!. I once found a place that would sell it by the cut square inch and a 12x12 inch sheet was only about $70, but I didn't ear mark the site!.!.!.!. :-(( Bummer!.!.!.!

http://lensmen2!.smugmug!.com/gallery/5321!.!.!. - This was taken with a camera factory modified to be a IR camera!. The filter was a 87c on a 50mm lens!. The camera has BW and Color settings, and here it was in color!. There IS some post image processing, but the colors were there to begin with!. Some times a yellow filter is good in color IR shooting, and any other color good at removing blue from the image because the chip in the camera is still sensitive to ALL wavelengths of light and blue is a killer here in IR shooting!.

Setting your white light balance to a custom setting helps too, a lot!. Make the camera think that the color green, like grass or tree leafs are - white - can help a lot in wacky far out colors (works good in regular photography too)!.!.!.

So, hopefully, this was helpful!. I figured you were talking about, what you were talking about, and wanted color IR shots!. Not other filters!.!.

Bob - TucsonWww@QuestionHome@Com

Hmm, i think you're confused a bit there!. IR filters ( Infra-red ) take most o the light from the images, so, you'll end up with a reddish other worldly image!. It could be a nice effect though!. I think you're talking about Polarizers or color filters, they'll add different artistic notes to your photos!. Only the polarizer with have effect on colored photographs, to use the colored ones, you're going to have to shoot in black and white:

http://www!.amazon!.com/Tiffen-58mm-25-Fil!.!.!.
http://www!.amazon!.com/Hoya-58CIR-Circula!.!.!.

The size of filter you get depends on the lens you're using, there's no all-in-one filter!. Hope it all goes well!.
Www@QuestionHome@Com

You are a little confused!.

Red, Green and Blue are the colours of light that make coloured pictures

IR is an invisible light frequency and an IR filter cuts off all the other light frequencies but IR

You may be thinking of a polarizing filter to enhance colour in photographsWww@QuestionHome@Com

Here are some, you may find this useful
http://www!.hoyaoptics!.com/color_filter/i!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com