Hey gang, I couldn't wait to tell you guys about this. I'm one of those freaks that thinks Sony's Nightshot is pretty cool. I understand why they didn't put it on the trv900's 'cause as my brother put it, "that gimmick isn't for serious use"... but then again, he's pretty uptight and I like to use my equipment for professional applications as well as fun.

Anyway, as I was checking out "ir emitters" to boost the range of my first dv cam, a trv17, I stumbled across some guy that told me to use Rosco Congo Blue and Primary Red gels together to make my own ir filter for a "normal" light. I don't think the Rosco gels I have are those specifically... but I just stacked a crap-load of red 'n blue gels in front of a fresnel... I think like 6 total... anyway, you CAN still see the reddish image of the lamp in there, but basically it's totally dark as far as real light output... you can put your hand in front of it and see the red when you're VERY close to it... but it isn't enough light to even read by... and the "beam" appears to be gone as if no light is going anywhere.

Well, then you flip on the Nightshot and WOW!... it works just as described! If you want your own IR floodlight for $11 total then get a Congo Blue and Primary Red gel and slap as many layers as you prefer on top of a fresnel or even a worklight.

If you don't have a Nightshot camera then you may be asking yourself, "What's the point of this?"... and in that case I don't have a good answer. If on the other hand you DO have a Nightshot cam and you want to experiment with nature video or create a PERFECT survivor set where you can actually sculpt the light just as you would on a normal set... then get ready to have some fun! You can use your "invisible fresnels" to create shadows and all the lighting effects you would do in a normal situation... but NOBODY can tell that you're doing anything...

Frankly I think Survivor should hire me as an invisible lighting technician... You wouldn't believe the quality of light you can get in total darkness...

Hmm, never thought I'd say that.

Hey Matt,

Do you think you could post some example stills?

-Nori

Nori, on some of the other forums I'm part of it's easy to just pop a picture right on the post itself. I guess I need to put up a link... I had written a review of a Portabrace bag that Chris was going to put up... but I was on crappy dial-up and I couldn't get my pics to go through... well now I'm on DSL and I can give you whatever you want, soooo.... what do you want?

I haven't posted pics on a homepage or another site, so if you want then you can email me and I'll send you whatever you want. As I said, I can do anything with this so I can show you an example of fresnels perfectly lighting a scene... complete with "shadows" and "light shaping forms", which is funny to say 'cause with the naked eye it's still ALL total darkness... ha!

I can also send you a telephoto shot of my cam on full zoom WITH a 2x zoom into darkness that is illuminated with one of my "ir floodlights"...

Or I can send you both... what would you like?

I'll take the time to get more proficient with the internet and pics and streaming video... basically I need to set up a legitimate homepage and start using it... I have a lot of "tricks" and ideas I want to share with you guys... I already tell everybody about 'em, but it doesn't mean much until you see it for yourself and unconsciously say, "wow".

What's the point in the blue gels? They subtract red. If you understand how light works in the infrared region, a much lower wattage lamp and red gels would do just as well.

About a year ago I found glass infrared filters ($12) so that a Turtle rescue project could tape sea turtles laying eggs, worked a treat for them.

Yeah John... you are right... Thanks for pointing that out! If you hadn't I may have stayed ignorant rather then using a little common sense... After I got out my Lee swatchbook I see that the "Blood Red" #789 seems to be the best choice for anybody reading this. It's graph shows everything blocked up till 600 nm and it doesn't open up until 700 nm... which basically means that a gel or stack of gels in this specification will definitely work best.

Forget the blue... that was just stupid.

Hey if you want to do us all a favor why don't you tell us where you found the glass filters for $12? I started a google quest, but I'd rather check back here for a definitive answer... please? Thanks!

My guess would be that the combination of red and blue gels simply block out all the visible light, but that neither of them can actually block IR light. So, you get a light that pours out large amounts of IR suitable for illuminating a Nightshot-shot, but no actual visible light that would interfere with anything.

If you only had the red gels, you would get... red light... which probably isn't what you want since you can still see it.

Can you send some pictures to me, Matt? Please of the setup
and the resulting image. Thanks.

Send em to rob@ladyxfilms.com