The Holy Grail of Nikon IR cameras

 

As the title says, the early days of Nikon DSLR cameras were also some of the best cameras for infrared photography with filters like the Hoya R72.
The cameras that fall into this category are mainly the Nikon D50 and Nikon D70 series (the D40 and D100 are also often mentioned, although the D40 is not always easy to set the white balance correctly, and the D100 was never as widely used back in the day).

As some of you already saw, I’ve been taking IR photos with my fully working Nikon D50, but I’ve also been using my half-working D70s (yes, it only takes one shot out of every three attempts because of a shutter issue, which honestly makes it almost unusable). Still, from the shots I managed to take with the D70s, I noticed some interesting differences between the two cameras.

The biggest difference is definitely the colors. The D70s produces much more vivid tones, with deeper and more saturated colors in my opinion. The white tones in vegetation also appear cleaner and brighter, while on the D50 they look slightly more faded.

So instead of just thinking about it, today I took both cameras with me to work and went on a small photo trip to compare them properly.

I took the same photos with both cameras:

• Same white balance taken from the same surface

• Same camera settings

• Same lens, only switched between the bodies

• Both photos been taken in RAW

Gear used:

• Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8

• Hoya R72 77mm IR filter

The top photo is the original image straight out of camera.
The middle photo is color and level corrected.
The bottom photo is the channel mix version (blue swapped into red, with the green channel disabled).

 

 

 

now I wonder if you have any experience too with IR photography and what do you think?

so enough is enough, I also asked CheatGPT for his opinion, here it is:

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According to the comparison, the Nikon D50 produces a darker and moodier infrared look straight out of camera, with stronger contrast and deeper shadows. The skies also appear slightly more dramatic, especially after the channel swap process.

The Nikon D70s on the other hand seems to produce cleaner whites, smoother tonal transitions, and much more vivid colors overall. Vegetation appears brighter and more detailed, while the highlights feel slightly more controlled and balanced.

Another thing that stood out in the analysis was the overall character of the images. The D50 was described as having a more “raw” and atmospheric CCD look, which works especially well for abandoned places, rusty vehicles, and darker rural scenes. Meanwhile, the D70s feels more refined and technically balanced, making it very good for cleaner false-color infrared photography.

What makes this comparison interesting is that both cameras come from the same early Nikon CCD generation, yet they still produce noticeably different infrared results even with the exact same setup, lens, white balance, and filter.

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