The Infrared XA2 Experiment - Round 1

Notice! This post is part of a series about shooting an Olympus XA2 with Infrared Flash. If this is the first page you are visiting on the subject of infrared blash, it may be beneficial to start with the summary post of the series.

For the first wave of experimenting, I used some Rollei Infrared 400 film. This reason I picked this film to start with is entirely because it was the cheapest I could find. If I make this work, and it can extend my ability to shoot in the winter months where I don't see daylight outside of work hours, saving two to three dollars per roll will add up fast.

On to the test results!

87 Filter

As shown in the my first post about modifying the XA2, I used a Lee 87 filter over the flash. I did a series of exposures with the A11 flash set to full power at five, twelve and twenty feet approximately. The results I got from this set-up with the Rollei Infrared film looked much like the following image.

What I didn't do before ordering the Rollei film was look at its spectral sensitivity curve. In a nutshell, Rollei 400's sensitivity for infrared starts to fall around the same wavelength that the 87 filter allows. Thus, very little, if any light that the film is sensitive too actually made it to the film. This resulted in unexposed frames.

Needing to change the filtration over the flash to allow light closer to the visible spectrum through, I borrowed a Hoya R72 filter from a colleague to repeat the experiment with. I've also read a few times over the years that E6 film can be used as a makeshift infrared filter. So for the sake of experimentation, I also repeated the exposures using layers of unexposed, but processed E6 film over the flash.

Exposed E6 Filter

I cut off some unexposed ends of some some of my medium format Fuji Provia 100F slides and taped a single layer of the material over the flash. With one layer of E6 film over the flash I ended up with an unusably faint image when the subject was at five feet, and nothing at twelve and twenty feet. The actual flash pulse itself was also quite pronounced with the single layer of E6 film. Nothing I'd consider to be incredibly stealthy

I also ran a series with two layers of E6 film over the flash. The visibility of the flash was greatly reduced, as was the resulting image on the film. Therefor, two layers of E6 film ended up being even more worthless for my needs.

Hoya R72 Filter

After the E6 filtration, I used the R72 filter over the flash. With the R72 filter over the flash, the flash pulse was much less visible than the pulse that occurred while using a single layer of E6 film. And unlike the E6 filter, I actually got a usable negative at the five foot range.

The photos taken at twelve and twenty feet where still out of range for this flash & filtration combo and came out blank. But, at least I am getting somewhere.

Next Steps

A mountable R72/89b filter.

89B gels tend to be rather expensive, so I'll try to find an alternative first. There seems to be a gluttony of cheap Chinese made glass R72 filters available on eBay right now. One option I may pursue is to get one of those, and cut it down with my Dremel using a diamond cutting disc.

Larger Flash

I think this one is a gimme. For best results I'll need to get my hands on the larger Olympus A16 flash. I think every extra guide number I can get out of the flash will be beneficial. Five feet is a very tight radius to work with, and hopefully the A16 flash can extend that range a few feet.

Break down and buy the more expensive film.

I'll keep trying to do with with the Rollei 400, but I expect I'll buy a roll or two of the more expensive, and more sensitive infrared films. It may just prove to be that they provide an image that is superior enough to justify the increase in price.