R72 Filter With Normal Film?

F4U · Feb 9, 2025

Sitting out on my front porch on a not so cold, overcast winter Sunday, I got out my R72 filter just to play with it. Being such a dark filter, you have to put it up to your eye and give your eye a little time to adjust, to see anything. What I saw surprised me. Look at these 2 cell phone photos. Those areas of blue sky are not that blue at all in person. It's actually a rather dull day. If I were to shoot a scenic of a cornfield or something on a day like this, a No 8 yellow filter would do nothing. I'd still have a white sky in the B&W photo. Same with a No 11. I bet even a 25A red filter would give me nearly zilch in cloud separation. But even with that barely-there shade of blue, the R72 knocked that blue right out. It wasn't black, of course, but everything was totally different. Brilliant white clouds, dark sky. Very picturesque.
An R72 is for infrared film. But what would happen if you went out shooting scenics on normal pan film with it? Especially on a sunny day in early spring where all the new leaves are full of chlorophyll. I bet a normal roll of pan film would be turned into have normal/half infrared. Or would it?

reddesert · Feb 9, 2025

Many digital detectors have some response in the near infrared, enough so that they typically have IR-cut filters installed to avoid false-color response. So depending on what sensor and filter are in your cell phone camera, you are likely getting more sensitivity through an R72 filter than a typical B&W film would give you. There are extensive threads about B&W films with extended red sensitivity (the various repackagings of Aviphot like Rollei IR; Ilford's SFX ? film) and R72 filters. With a B&W film that doesn't have extended sensitivity, it will probably be super slow through an R72 if you see anything at all. But it only takes your time and effort to try it.

xkaes · Feb 9, 2025

The sensitivity of normal films drops like a brick in the IR region, but there are slight variations from film to film. You could try an IR filter (there are different ones) and if the exposure is long enough, you'll get something -- and it might prove interesting. Much like using a pinhole, you'll need a LONG exposure (and development adjustment), but it sounds like a worthwhile experiment.

Another thing to try is a 25A (red) and an X1 (green) sandwich.

We expect results by the end of the week!

Maris · Feb 9, 2025

Delta 3200 Infrared Step Test
Gelatin-silver photograph on Ilford Classic VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.5cm, from a Ilford Delta 3200 negative
exposed in a Mamiya RB67 camera fitted with a 127mm lens working at f6.7 plus a IR720 infrared filter.
Adequate exposure arrives at about 8 minutes.

xkaes · Feb 9, 2025

Thanks for that!

That's about four hours with ISO 100 film!!

Make sure you cover up your camera to keep the bird poop off of it!!!

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 9, 2025

You'll have better luck with an extended red film like Delta 400. I did a video a while back... My exposures were long, making it not very practical... but I did end up with an interesting image. Here is a Kallitype I made...

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 9, 2025

Here's the video, in case you are interested...

F4U · Feb 9, 2025

Andrew O'Neill said:
You'll have better luck with an extended red film like Delta 400. I did a video a while back... My exposures were long, making it not very practical... but I did end up with an interesting image. Here is a Kallitype I made...

View attachment 390622

Excellent! Is my Hoya R72 filter the most extreme infrared filter there is (for consumer use)?

Wolfram Malukker · Feb 9, 2025

Zomei makes a 680nm, 715nm, 720nm, 780nm, 800nm, 820nm and 850nm filters. The 720nm is equal to a Hoya R72, 800nm is roughly equal to the Wratten 89A, 850nm is roughly equal to a Wratten 87C, from what I last looked up.

With currently available IR films, only the 680, 715, and 720nm filters are really usable. I use either the 680 or 720 filter the few times I've shot IR film so far.

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 9, 2025

F4U said:
Excellent! Is my Hoya R72 filter the most extreme infrared filter there is (for consumer use)?

For the IR films that are available today, yes. I did a test with the 780 on Rollei IR. It worked, but there was no difference in effect between it and the 720.

MattKing · Feb 9, 2025

F4U said:
Excellent! Is my Hoya R72 filter the most extreme infrared filter there is (for consumer use)?

When you say "extreme", which way are you leaning?
A 680nm filter filters out the least amount of visible/non-IR light of all the candidates.
A 720nm filter blocks a bit more of the visible light.
As the wavelength number goes up, the amount of visible light hitting the film goes down.
A 850nm filter will block out essentially all the visible light, and lets essentially all that glorious IR light through.
The challenge, of course, is the film behind that filter - there are no films left with a lot of sensitivity to the light let through by those high wavelength filters.
Artistic IR photography is an exercise in matching the available films, the filters available and the IR light present in your scene, with a goal of achieving the desired balance of response to the visible and the near IR/IR components of the light.
If you don't choose well, either the visible component will overwhelm the near IR/IR components, or you end up with very little image on the film.

F4U · Feb 9, 2025

Film manufacture has fallen in my lifetime to a "niche" manufacturing endeavor. i seriously doubt there are any 100 million dollar a year CEO's of film companies. That said, I wonder where the manufacturing difficulty and expense level falls, using the old Eastman Kodak in it's prime. There was Verichrome Pan on the lowest rung on the ladder, through C-22 and C41 color negative film. Then on to E4 and E6 Ektachrome and at the very top was Kodachrome, which was nothing less than a feat and a miracle. just imagining the difficulty and expense of making Kodachrome now is impossible unfeasible. I wonder where the manufacture of High Speed Infrared fell on this ladder. Certainly the actual recipes for it can be put back together. but I wonder where the manufacturing difficulty falls on that ladder, to where some film company can't buy those recipes and make it? I doubt Kodak Alaris can or cares. Kodak Park today is probably an area of condominiums. Most buildings long demolished. Is making Infrared so hard hat other companies that make this pseudo- infrared can't make it? Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for a half loaf. It's better than none. We all should be grateful we can get any film at all I suppose.

reddesert · Feb 9, 2025

Someone like Bob Shanebrook would have to answer the question of what it actually took to make Kodak HIE, but I'm virtually certain that its development was driven by applications such as aerial reconnaissance, scientific, and industrial uses. Not by small-quantity artistic users, hobbyists, etc. We were a pimple on the tail of the industrial elephant. There were other red and near-IR sensitive emulsions used for example in the large-glass-plate era of scientific astrophotography - all gone now.

In general, an issue with extending the redward sensitivity of either a film, or a digital detector, is that redder photons are lower energy. It's harder to devise either a chemical or a semiconductor that reacts to the lower-energy photon without generating spurious signal.

MattKing · Feb 10, 2025

Nah - almost everything could be made now.
There are some exceptions, but mostly they could all be made.
It is the volumes that are the problem, because if you can't sell the necessary volumes to both maintain quality control and make a profit, when the product is offered for sale at prices people will play.
HIE went away because the main customers - the ones who bought 99% of it - they went away.
Kodachrome went away because the majority of the Kodachrome shot and processed was movie film, the movie shooters went elsewhere, and the high volume motion picture machines that were used to process most of it couldn't be operated profitably at the relatively tiny volumes that remained.
And if you read the posts here from the representatives of ADOX, you will realize that the smaller entities like them could make a whole bunch of products that people would like, except the volumes that they would be able to sell, would mean prices that almost no one would pay.
And by the way, Kodak Park is one of the bright lights in Eastman Kodak's business plan - they are gaining new tenants, with lots of synergies with their own slowly but steadily expanding and improving manufacturing capabilities. Only some of those capabilities are related just to photographic film, of course. But things like the coating capabilities that are used for photographic film, polyester film (including the Estar substrate used as part of photographic film) and flexible circuit boards, they are the things that are keeping Eastman Kodak viable in the division that we are interested in here.
Almost none of this stuff is about recipes. Its about knowledge about how to do this stuff on a commercial and industrial basis, and to make a reasonable profit while doing it.

F4U · Feb 10, 2025

reddesert said:
Someone like Bob Shanebrook would have to answer the question of what it actually took to make Kodak HIE, but I'm virtually certain that its development was driven by applications such as aerial reconnaissance, scientific, and industrial uses. Not by small-quantity artistic users, hobbyists, etc. We were a pimple on the tail of the industrial elephant. There were other red and near-IR sensitive emulsions used for example in the large-glass-plate era of scientific astrophotography - all gone now.

In general, an issue with extending the redward sensitivity of either a film, or a digital detector, is that redder photons are lower energy. It's harder to devise either a chemical or a semiconductor that reacts to the lower-energy photon without generating spurious signal.

I know all that. So I suppose an answer to s simple question can shut me up and make me happy. Back in the early 70's I'd take my trusty Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL out in the country with a tripod, a roll of HIE and 25A filter. and most of the time I didn't even need the tripod. So my question: Can todays' "Infrared films" with an R72 give me anywhere near what I was getting then? I could make another world out of my pictures, completely unlike the ordinary color world we all see day-to-day. Once you've seen some good B&W infrared pictures, nothing else can ever be as interesting.

Sirius Glass · Feb 10, 2025

As you have shown before, you can get film to respond beyond its exposure range if you give it enough time.

reddesert · Feb 10, 2025

Well, try today's "infrared" (extended red sensitivity) films with a 25A filter or an R72 filter. It's not going to look exactly like HIE, but it will look like something; no one except you can tell you if it will satisfy you. There are many threads that give exposure starting points.

That is different from the original question of will a normal pan film give usable results with an R72 filter. Without the extended red sensitivity, you may be in 8 minute exposure territory.

I've also taken acceptable "IR" photographs with a 720 or 760 nm filter and a digital SLR that has a less aggressive IR cut filter, but that is a topic for a different forum.

F4U · Feb 10, 2025

reddesert said:
Well, try today's "infrared" (extended red sensitivity) films with a 25A filter or an R72 filter. It's not going to look exactly like HIE, but it will look like something; no one except you can tell you if it will satisfy you. There are many threads that give exposure starting points.

That is different from the original question of will a normal pan film give usable results with an R72 filter. Without the extended red sensitivity, you may be in 8 minute exposure territory.

I've also taken acceptable "IR" photographs with a 720 or 760 nm filter and a digital SLR that has a less aggressive IR cut filter, but that is a topic for a different forum.

I have a Nikon D7100. Fine camera. But finding digital film for it is hard to come by. It's good enough for real estate agents to post their listings on the MLS. But that's about all. I have to admit though, they can make a pretty fair exposure meter. There's a difference between eating a good barbeque sandwich and looking at a picture of one on a computer.

retina_restoration · Feb 10, 2025

F4U said:
Can todays' "Infrared films" with an R72 give me anywhere near what I was getting then?

Nope. Some come close when exposed a certain way, but nothing currently available looks like HIE did. Believe me, I know - I used to buy HIE 20 and 30 rolls at a time and for years I rarely used anything else. But that was the late 1980s and early 90s.
Rollei IR 400 can look decent, but it's definitely not going to give you the HIE look.

Sirius Glass · Feb 10, 2025

retina_restoration said:
Nope. Some come close when exposed a certain way, but nothing currently available looks like HIE did. Believe me, I know - I used to buy HIE 20 and 30 rolls at a time and for years I rarely used anything else. But that was the late 1980s and early 90s.
Rollei IR 400 can look decent, but it's definitely not going to give you the HIE look.

I agree. Rollei IR 400 is my go to infrared film.

MattKing · Feb 10, 2025

retina_restoration said:
Nope. Some come close when exposed a certain way, but nothing currently available looks like HIE did. Believe me, I know - I used to buy HIE 20 and 30 rolls at a time and for years I rarely used anything else. But that was the late 1980s and early 90s.
Rollei IR 400 can look decent, but it's definitely not going to give you the HIE look.

I'm going to differ a bit with you here.
Yes, the current films perform differently than HIE.
And yes, they favour use with a rangefinder or TLR, because of the need for more filtration.
And yes, it is difficult to use them hand held.
But you can get some dramatic results - this one from Ilford SFX:

Ivo Stunga · Feb 10, 2025

Sirius Glass said:
I agree. Rollei IR 400 is my go to infrared film.

Which is Superpan 200 which is Retro 400S, which all are Aviphot 200. IR 400 is the priciest of them all - I guess more exotic pigments in packaging :F

I gave Fomapan R 100 - a "normal" sensitivity film a go with 715nm filter. Only "problem" being that it was winter. But winter has IR light too, so little problem for a quick and atypical NIR response test:

R100 + RG715 by Ivo Stunga, on Flickr

For comparison - this is what IR400 looked like with 720nm filter at winter:

IR Winter by Ivo Stunga, on Flickr

Ivo Stunga · Feb 10, 2025

retina_restoration said:
nothing currently available looks like HIE did

You can wash off the Antihalation layer before shooting and achieve things quite similar to that.

Soft halation effect:

Red Tomatoes by Ivo Stunga, on Flickr

Harder effect:

URBEX LV by Ivo Stunga, on Flickr

More examples here:

Flickr Search

www.flickr.com

DREW WILEY · Feb 10, 2025

Not all pan films are the same with respect to red sensitivity. And therefore how they respond to specific red filters also varies. I normally carry a 25 medium red, which works well with all pan films, but own everything from a lighter 24 red up to a deep red 29. And these 29's vary somewhat brand to brand in terms of intensity. I once successfully used a 29 for past IR films (or technically, near-IR like Konica 750, but pretty much the same look).

F4U · Feb 10, 2025

Since these non Kokak IR films are't really the real deal, do you still have to refocus to the IR mark on the lens?

R72 Filter With Normal Film?

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