These infrared photos shot from a hot air balloon are truly beautiful

There’s something about floating around in a hot air balloon that just seems so peaceful and tranquil – despite the roar of burners blasting hot air into them. The views one can get from them are also quite astounding, too. And when you’re in one with a camera, they offer a level of control that a drone simply cannot.

Ted Forbes at The Art of Photography recently had his old Sony NEX-7 camera converted to full-spectrum. This means it can now see light outside of our human visible colour spectrum. He decided to take it up in a hot air balloon, and the results are just beautiful.

Ted covered the lens with a 720nm infrared filter to block out all of the visible and ultraviolet light, letting through only infrared. Digital infrared and full spectrum conversions offer some distinct advantages over the days of infrared film. For a start, you can typically get much higher detail with lower levels of noise. Infrared film was often notoriously grainy.

They also offer regular handheld exposure times, too, which is something you don’t get by just putting an infrared filter over an off-the-shelf DSLR or mirrorless camera.

Ted presents the images as black and whites, and they are absolutely stunning, with sunlit leaves on trees showing that distinctive bright white that almost makes them look snow-covered. Seeing the world in infrared, especially somewhere as stunning as the Arizona desert as in Ted’s video, offers up some wonderful perspectives.

I’ve been considering having one of my old DSLRs converted to infrared for a few years now. I think I might just bite the bullet and do it this year.

[via Imaging Resource]