I have been fascinated by IR photography since I first figured out what it was. I started off as a digital camera brat, so most of my experiences were with really slow shutter speeds on a sensor mostly protected from IR light. Since returning to film I have gotten back into IR and find that it is both frustrating and fun to work with. Until recently my only extended red film has been Ilford’s SFX 200, which is a just barely IR sensitive film (720nm). I have recently discovered Rolleri’s series of films, most of which are more sensitive to red than Ilford’s standard films. Their IR 400 film, which is sensitive to 820nm, has a greater range than anything I’ve worked with before. For my test roll I experimented a lot with exposure settings as IR is very different for metering from visible light. For SFX 200 I have to reduce the metered speed by several stops for a good exposure. IR 400 is not quite as sensitive and seems to require several stops of increase to avoid a dark image.

Overall I am impressed with some of the results I have gotten with IR 400 on the test roll, but am looking forward to seeing more of the results that I get when I develop my second roll now that I have more of an idea of the type of exposure levels that work well with the film.