X-Pro2 Infrared Camera- Michael St. Jean

Without the spring blooms, the summer sunshine, and the autumn colors, winter is the time to embrace black and white. With its black and white film simulations, Fujis produce beautiful monochromatic images. But sometimes I like to push the dark and moody even further by transforming my X-Pro2 into an infrared Vampire Cam to capture the unearthly darkness that surrounds us.

The Setup

My Quick Menu Vampire Cam settings start with ACROS Red, with NR -4, HT -2, ST +3, CO 0, SH +2.

I use the Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 lens with a R72 filter. Infrared filters give the image a red cast, but setting the camera to a B&W setting takes care of that. Infrared filters block much of the light, but using a tripod handles the long exposures. In addition to the IR filter, I’ll occasionally stack a ND filter to further slow down the exposure times.]

Vampire Cam setup (wooden stakes not pictured)

Typically I manually set the ISO to 200-400, and adjust the aperture and exposure compensation to control exposure times. The beauty of mirrorless cameras is that, even with the reduced light passing through the IR filter, the camera can still auto-focus, not that auto-focus is critical when shooting IR. However, I do wish the Fuji’s could auto-meter over 30 seconds. Before I switched to Fujifilm I shot with Micro 4/3 cameras which auto-metered up to 2 minutes. I miss that flexibility. Yes, you can extend Fuji’s metering beyond 30 seconds, but now you have to use bulb and an exposure calculation app….too much effort, so no.

The XF 35mm f/1.4 has no hotspots. My IR filter has a 52mm thread. I have another IR filter on order from amazon with a 62mm thread so I can use it on my 14mm and 55-200mm. According to the Internet, these lenses are infrared-friendly.

I have considered sending my old X-E1 for infrared conversion so I can ditch the filters and shoot at normal exposure times, but I rather like using long exposures for dark and dramatic black and whites.

Here are some of the results: