Shooting with an Infrared Filter (IR72)

I used to think that infrared photography can only be achieve with a modified camera. Recently, my friend showed me a filter on eBay and told me that it can be used to shoot infrared photography. I wasn’t sure at first, so I went to do some searching and found some people use Hoya IR72 filter with their Olympus EM-5 camera, so I bought a cheap 52mm IR720 filter without any brand to go with my 12-50 kit lens, reason I choose the 52mm is because I was gonna buy a Olympus 9-18mm lens, it has the same filter size with the kit lens.

I learned the post-processing technique from dpreview forums. Click here to visit the forum post.

From the forum post, gidferrer suggested to set white balance to 2000. I shot RAW for these images, so that it’s easier for me to change the white balance later.

Here’s the first OK shot using the filter.

From camera:

Post-processed:

Here’s 2 shots I took in the afternoon on the same day:

From camera:

Post-processed:

From camera:

Post-processed:

Not too bad. But lots of noise. I’m not sure if it’s because of the high ISO, or because it’s heavily edited. And I also noticed there’s a hotspot at the center of the image, not sure how to get rid of it, maybe I need better lens or better IR filter?

Here’s another 2 I shot when going to Fraser’s Hill: