Just for fun I recently thought I'd explore shooting infrared film. I was interested to see what the world looked like at the further reaches of the spectrum. to do this I decided to kick off with Rollei Infrared 400 medium format film.

Given the difficulties in shooting Infrared film - essentially lens filters too dark to see through and the fact it is notoriously hard to focus - I decided that little vintage Zeiss Ikonta, kindly given to me by a friend, would be the ideal medium format IR landscape camera as it was small, light and had a viewfinder for framing that wouldn't be blacked out by the infrared filter. Also, whist having no focusing system (apart from distances marked on the lens) is a pain in most situations it would be just fine for landscapes. The main job was to loosen up the sticky shutter and find a way of attaching a IR filter. This I did with the help of a vintage lens hood. I then christened it the Dalek (for obvious reasons). 

For it's first outing I decided to take the little Zeiss out to Hare Hill House to see what it could do.

As you'll see from the main pic above it did a good job for an old timer. The Rollei film worked well and whilst it is very high contrast, and a little grainy, it still made a very nice wet-print.

So all-in-all I'm very pleased with what my Zeiss Dalek can do. I think we'll take a few more trips together soon.