Full-Spectrum Z5 Filter Tests On an Overcast Day

In this video I test out four infrared filters on my full spectrum converted Nikon Z5 camera.

When my full spectrum converted camera arrived from Life Pixel, it came with one custom white balance pre-set by them, so the camera could make usable jpegs right out of the box. It seems to be set for a 720nm IR filter, but it does an OK job with my other filters, too. My filters are all from the same company - Zomei. The four that I have are 680nm, 720nm, 850nm, and 950nm. I was getting some good results, but I wanted to see if I could do better by making a custom white balance preset for each filter, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. The Nikon Z5 does allow for up to 6 custom WB presets, so this should be possible. I left Pre1 as the Life Pixel preset. It works, I'm not going to mess with it. Pre2 was set for full spectrum. This was the biggest overall improvement I saw. Pre3 was going to be for 680nm, but I kept getting an error. Pre4 is a custom white balance for 720nm Pre5 is a custom white balance for 850nm I didn't bother created a custom setting for 950, as the 850 worked just fine.

The camera was in manual mode, but with auto ISO turned on, so I could record the changes in exposure levels across the filters.

With a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second and an aperture set to f/5.6, full spectrum and 680nm both stayed at ISO 100. 850nm jumped to ISO 640, and 950 needed ISO 6,400.

The biggest difference I noticed was a change in contrast or overall dynamic range. In full spectrum mode, the overall contrast is greater. The sky is much brighter than the shadows, so HDR work would be necessary, while the same image captured at 950nm only used about 1/3rd of the range the lens is capable of capturing, so some heavy curves adjustments is needed to have the full range from shadows to highlights.

All of these videos were made with the Standard colour profile in overcast lighting. Active-D Lighting was turned OFF.

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