This is going to be a rather image-heavy post. But before we get to the photos, let me briefly say what it’s all about. Once again, it’s about the TB550/660/850 filter from Midwest Optics. And hopefully it will be the last post on this topic.
As explained in numerous posts in the past, taking photos with this filter and especially image processing does not turn out to be that easy. There are several reasons for this, which I won’t go into again. The fact is: IR subtraction via the channel mixer delivers unsatisfactory results. Primarily a strange sky color, general color artifacts and contrast anomalies.
I therefore chose the path I once took with the green-orange combination: Namely to subtract the IR via the Raw Converter. And lo and behold: It actually gives much better results.
Finally blue sky, finally the color variations that distinguished the original Aerochrome.
Here are some photos I took that way. ONLY with the TB550/660/850 filter, without any additional orange filter. You can see that it meets all the characteristics of Aerochrome: The color changes (e.g. red to yellow), the dark blue sky that is sometimes more cyan, sometimes more blue, depending on the position of the sun, the colors of the plants that range from a soft pink to a dark red. And I finally even managed to make people not as yellow as the Simpsons, they at most have (as in the original film) a slight yellow cast.
Here are the steps in Adobe Photoshop. In the third picture you can see only the last shift in the channel mixer. You have to set 0, 0, 100 for red, 100, 0, 0 for green and 0, 100, 0 for blue.
3 Comments
Hello,
I have a couple of questions as i’m also trying to recreate the the aerochrome look.
I have found the orange and green filter method to work well when it comes to trees but when it comes to the way people look, it is not similar to the aerochrome film which i used quite a great deal. I’d love to try this triple band filter but i’ve got one major problem. The only camera I’ve converted so far is a fuji x100f. It has a fixed lens which cannot be removed. The filter thread is 49mm. At this size the triple band filter costs 500 dollars. Do you have any ideas on how I could solve this problem? Also would you have a sample portrait of how skin tones look like with this filter?
Hi Scott
If you zoom in on the pictures above, you can see what the skin looks like. In another post about CCD sensor performance with the TB, I also posted a picture of my hand. It depends on how you do the post-processing, whether you use an additional orange filter, etc. I think the skin tones are more “authentic” than with green-orange. As for the filter size. If you can’t take the lens off, you’ll have to attach it to the front. What does the front look like? Could you install a filter there?
I currently have another TB for sale, but it’s 32.5mm. Write me if you are interested, via the e-mail on the homepage.
Cheers
YesI can put filters on the lens but only 49mm so unfortunately 32.5mm wouldn’t work. I believe a stepdown ring would cause some vignetting.