Easter in Infrared

Yesterday was a beautiful day for Easter. Prior to the Easter feast, I dusted off my P5100 ready for some family snapshots. Now that the fascination of the D90 has calmed down a bit, I find myself reaching for either camera, based on the type of use.


The P5100 is great for family snapshots, especially when family members may judge you harshly on your extravagance of owning two cameras.

Now that I’ve reacquainted myself with the optical viewfinder, I find myself turning off the EVF on the P5100 more and more. It’s hard to do, because then I want to see the image right away, so I turn it back on. DSLRs solve this problem by keeping the LCD off while shooting, and briefly displaying the image right after its capture. This would have been a great feature for the P5100. I am also accustomed to seeing all the shooting info in a DSLR’s viewfinder, which is missing from the P5100 unless you use the EVF. And I can’t disable the EVF in full auto mode. But I can turn down the brightness of the display so it’s not glaring in my eye as I look through the OVF.

Also prior to dining, I took the opportunity to revisit Infrared on the P5100. with my 52mm R72 filter installed, I captured some similar images to those I took yesterday with the D90. Using the Program mode, I can also dial in a consistent exposure with exposure compensation, same as the D90. However, the P5100 has difficulty focusing. I could not get a positive focus confirmation on the P5100, but I could almost always get it on the D90. The P5100 only goes up to ISO 2000 (for a full resolution image) whereas the D90 can go as high as 6400, and the quality is considerably better.

Interestingly, the same white balance settings yielded similar results in both cameras. Tungsten produces a purple image, fluorescent a deep magenta image, and auto a salmony-red image. The tungsten image, closest to the 2500°K image of the D90, showed the slightest hint of color, but not distinct enough to recognize the grass as green. If I were to suggest a setting to someone with limited options, I’d say go with the fluorescent. At 3800°K, it’s the closest to custom white balancing to green foliage, which is about 4440°K, without the extra step.

One thing I can do on the P5100 that I can’t on the D90, is white balance through the R72 filter. This yields a relatively neutral image with some nasty purplish flaring. I’ve seen this before, but I thought it was a hot spot. I can definitely see now that it’s a flare which varies depending on the angle of the light source. It’s actually pretty cool, and oddly, these images have less noise than monochrome captures. I must explore this further to see how it fits in to my workflow.

But I’m pretty sure the D90 will be used for nearly all of my Infrared work from this point forward. But, now that I have a DSLR, the way I use the P5100, and what I use it for will undoubtedly change.