Springtime IR Silhouettes

The calendar says it is springtime, but the Southeast Michigan landscape is still pretty bleak. For me, this is the optimum time to practice taking IR silhouettes. The skies are kicking out a lot of IR light and with a light cloud cover, the sky serves as natural softbox.

This photo shows a tree that I found alongside the road. This tree managed to hang onto some of it's leaves despite the wind, snow, and sleet that battered the landscape all winter. The photo was taken on March 23, 2015 in Pittsfield Township Michigan using a Nikon D90 (standard 720nm conversion) camera, Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR lens, at f/6.3, 1/160 sec, +2EV, and ISO 200. I used spot metering and metered on the tree. (I wanted the sky to blow out.)

Post-processing was done in Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Camera Raw.  The photo was converted to BW using CS5. With this approach, you don't have to worry about a channel swap.

I find lots of interesting shapes at this time of the year that I really can't photograph when the leaves are out.