'Parade' in False Color Infrared

'De Parade' (dutch) marks the start of the theatre season in the Netherlands. A group of theater performers travels from city to city in a couple of weeks to try out their new theater program.

This panorama is a false color infrared view of sunset on the parade grounds in the Hague. It was taken using a fisheye lens that an internal infrared passthrough filter.

All camera sensors (CCD and CMOS) are sensitive to infrared light to some extend, but most of the infrared light is blocked by an internal filter. By putting a 'visible light' filter in front of the camera, visible light is blocked to such an extend that the small amount of infrared light that passes through the internal infrared blocking filter becomes more prevalent in the total amount of light.

Because most light is blocked, the required shuttertimes are extremely long. In this particular case, a shuttertime of 2 seconds was required. This is why most of the people in this shot have turned into a ghostly smear, changing the busy, happy scene into a spooky view of the fairground.

I chose this panorama for the 'Best of 2006' because this year was the first year I successfully shot and stitched infrared panoramas, and I really like the effect.

Some more information is available on my blog. Some more infrared panoramas can be found in this Flickr set

Europe / Netherlands

Lat: 52° 6' 12" N
Long: 4° 17' 34" E

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Fuji S2 Pro, Sigma 8mm MF fisheye lens, internal IR filter, homemade panohead

PTGui, Photoshop CS2, Pano2QTVR