[HN Gopher] Life in Another Light, 2024 Infrared-Photography-Con...
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       Life in Another Light, 2024 Infrared-Photography-Contest Winners
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2025-01-18 21:27 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
        
       | samplatt wrote:
       | These are gorgeous. Can't go past this without a heads-up for
       | Greg Egan's 2014 short story _Seventh Sight_ , where the
       | protagonists hack their (at the time bleeding-edge tech) eye
       | implants, allowing them to be part of a vanishingly-small group
       | of people that can see into the infrared and ultraviolet.
        
         | dcminter wrote:
         | I think it was in a Daedalus article that I read a passing
         | reference to a technician who had had an operation for
         | cataracts - the synthetic lens then allowed them to see a
         | little way into the ultraviolet and thus they were able to
         | calibrate a spectrometer "by eye" !
         | 
         | Edit: Ok, I looked it up... from the Daedalus column in New
         | Scientist in May 1969:
         | 
         |  _"... Daedalus recalls the story of a professor of
         | spectroscopy who lost an eye-lens in an explosion. He was given
         | corrective spectacles with enough UV transparency to let him
         | see some way into this region of the spectrum. Accordingly, he
         | could line up the departmental UV spectrometers by eye, and was
         | much in demand! "_
        
         | TeMPOraL wrote:
         | Makes me think of Star Trek's Geordie LaForge, a blind engineer
         | whose VISOR[0] not only gave him vision back, it extended it
         | into IR, UV ranges and beyond[1].
         | 
         | (Curiously, for a show from 1990s, the visualization of what he
         | sees[2] is eerily similar to images produced by misconfigured
         | diffusion models.)
         | 
         | --
         | 
         | [0] - Then futuristic; these days, I'm rather confident you
         | could hack it up with VR glasses and enough sensors, leaving
         | only the direct brain interface in the realm of sci-fi. Alas,
         | the necessary suite of real sensors is still stupidly expensive
         | AFAIK, way beyond a budget of a hobby project or even a product
         | prototype.
         | 
         | [1] - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/VISOR#Capabilities
         | 
         | [2] - There's some screencaps in the MemoryAlpha article I
         | linked; can't link directly, because the site detects
         | hotlinking.
        
       | sdflhasjd wrote:
       | I remember removing the IR filter from a cheap webcam and seeing
       | everything in a new light (haha, pun intended) was fascinating.
       | One of my black coats that didn't get hot under the sun and
       | appeared more reflective and. I remember some opaque things like
       | Coke being much more translucent.
       | 
       | These winning photos are a bit boring my comparison, the ghostly
       | effect of foliage in IR is cool but a bit overdone when there's
       | so many and there were so many other interesting differences in
       | every day objects.
       | 
       | I'd love to do the same with my mirrorless camera but it's a
       | quite destructive operation.
        
         | MisterTea wrote:
         | > I remember some opaque things like Coke being much more
         | translucent.
         | 
         | Many years ago (around 1998 or so) there was a Sony Camcorder
         | which lacked or had the ability to have its IR filter removed.
         | That supposedly gave it the ability to "see through" clothing
         | which caused quite the uproar.
         | 
         | I bought one of those Flir One Pro IR cameras and bought it to
         | a friends party. One thing that we were surprised about was
         | that it could see clear through latex balloons.
        
           | archerx wrote:
           | I had one those Sony camcorders, it's night shot was insane.
           | It could see through skin as well revealing vein structure in
           | a lot of detail.
        
           | krisoft wrote:
           | > One thing that we were surprised about was that it could
           | see clear through latex balloons.
           | 
           | This was something which surprised me too. Not specifically
           | latex, but how many manufactured materials appear to be
           | transparent in IR.
           | 
           | The explanation I heard is that it is because dye
           | manufacturers usually want to make their product keep their
           | colour long even when exposed to direct sunlight. And the
           | easiest way to achieve that is by selecting materials which
           | are transparent in IR. If they weren't the absorbed IR energy
           | would break them down faster.
           | 
           | So people usually don't care about the IR opaqueness of their
           | pigments/dyes but they care about colour fastness. And that
           | is what selects for IR transparency.
        
             | alnwlsn wrote:
             | I was once involved in a project which projected Aruco
             | markers in IR. So you get a slide projector, swap the bulb
             | for an LED, have some slides made at the photo place, and
             | you're done, right?
             | 
             | No - slide projector slides are IR transparent on purpose,
             | so that they don't absorb heat from the bulb.
        
       | shrx wrote:
       | Original article https://kolarivision.com/life-in-another-light-
       | infrared-phot...
        
       | MisterTea wrote:
       | https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2025/01/infrared-photograp...
       | 
       | This one is something. What is making the rocks luminous, fungus?
       | 
       | The nature scenes are spectacular.
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | I would hazard a guess the photographer got creative with a UV
         | flashlight given the eerie blue glow on the stone that is not
         | florescent
         | 
         | https://www.minershop.com/pages/uvandourhobby
        
         | krisoft wrote:
         | > What is making the rocks luminous, fungus?
         | 
         | It is the rocks themselves. Infrared luminescence is the name
         | of the effect. It is a bit like fluorescence except that the
         | emission occurs in the infrared rather than the visible part of
         | the spectrum.
         | 
         | https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1052c/report.pdf
        
       | rebalh wrote:
       | omg these are so beautiful. I am a photography enthusiast and I
       | didn't knew there was something called infrared photography. I
       | don't quite get the name, how is done?
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | With the use of a sensor or film sensitive to infrared light,
         | and optionally the use of deep red/orange lens filter to block
         | out all the other wavelengths.
         | 
         | Rollei still manufacturers infrared 35mm film, I think it used
         | to be used for aerial surveying, because green foliage is also
         | reflecting lots of infrared
         | 
         | For digital cameras a lot of sensors are already sensitive but
         | it's undesirable because it shows up as false colors, red hot
         | things will appear pink or purple, so digital cameras have
         | internal infrared filters. Go on eBay and search infrared
         | converted camera, lots to choose from, iirc it's a pretty
         | simple surgery if you're the type to take things apart and put
         | them back together
         | 
         | Here's a nice guide for more https://phlogger.co.uk/how-to-
         | shoot-colour-infrared-film-by-...
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography
        
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