Yesterday I made probably one of the silliest purchases that I have made in a long time, I bought an IR pass filter for my D60. I have no clue about infrared photography, so I suspect at the least it will be a fun learning experience. I have only seen infrared photos in the form of some small thumbnails online and it did not seem that interesting, more just color shifted, but I am hoping to see something somewhat dramatic when I try my filter. My primary focus is going to be on emitted vs. reflected light stuff at first. Might be kinda cool to play with some of the potential X-ray effects of IR, but not hoping for much there, since the camera is technically filtered against that (although, Nikon claims it is very much possible).

For those that are not familiar with IR Pass filters, they are pieces of glass that have been coated in such a way as to mostly block the visible light spectrum, allowing only the IR to pass to the sensor. They could be called “Visible Light Filters”, but then people probably would not make the jump to connecting them with infrared photography.

I have also been told that UV is interesting to analyze as well (and is more available to the camera), but it is a little bit more expensive to go to that side of my friend Roy G. Biv.

All this being said, I would have loved to have purchased my new filter in person, but so few places have camera filters and almost none have IR pass filters. Retailers are really sucking for my needs.