Surveillance Flight Number B-5289

In my previous post I mentioned that I started off photographing in monochrome but then later changed to a custom while balanced colour for my infrared street photos.

One of the first photos I took was in the Yandun Mountain Ecological Park of the Spanish lighthouse.

It looked beautiful in monochrome but when I opened the raw file, I noticed that the camera was on auto white balance producing a monochromatic red photo. I then attempted to get the false colours back my manually adjusting the white balance in the raw converter. I did this by using the sample tool to sample a grey point on the clouds. To my surprise, the foliage turned a vibrant blue while the visible sky between the clouds turned a greenish tone.

This immediately reminded me of an article I read about simulating KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443. In the article, the photographer mentioned that the starting point is to use a white balance that renders the foliage blue and the sky green.

I decided to experiment with my current white balance to see if I can imitate the Aerochrome film of yesteryear.

And I liked the outcome.

According to the original spec sheet from the Kodak website "KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 is an infrared-sensitive, false-colour reversal film intended for various aerial photographic applications where infrared discriminations may yield practical results. This film has a medium resolving power and fine grain".

It mentioned the following under applications: "Color infrared-sensitive film (sometimes referred to as “CIR” films) is potentially one of the most useful aerial films currently available to users of aerial photography in a wide range of scientific disciplines. The advantages of colour infrared-sensitive film for various applications are well documented".

With this in mind, I decided to relook at some photos I took with my infrared camera (set to monochrome) earlier this year on our flight from Cangyuan to Kunming in the Yunnan Province.

And I liked the result of the first photo I converted.

I then created a post-processing recipe that I reused on all the photos.

• Step one, add a channels adjustment layer and swap the red and blue channels; Select the red channel and change the values to be: red= 0%, green=0% and blue=100%. Then select the blue channel and change the values to be: red=100%, green=0% and blue=0%.
• Step two, and another channels adjustment layer and swap the green and blue channels; Select the green channel and change the values to be: red=0%, green=0% and blue=100%. Then select the blue channel and change the values to be: red=0%, green=100% and blue=0%.

This will change the foliage to a red tone and the sky to a blue tone. After this, I do some custom adjustment of the brightness, saturation and contrast to my liking.

And that is it.

This is the closest I managed to get to simulating the Kodak Aerochrome film yet and fitting for the photos I took during my idle hours of that flight.