Palm Flag

Since there should be at least one IR photo post, right?

This is a US flag that some folks in Santa Clara, CA hoisted up a very tall palm tree. This photo shows off three of the fun things that infrared light does:

• Living foliage turns white because chlorophyll reflects infrared light very efficiently
• Clear skies turn dark, a feature infrared filters share with regular visible red filters
• Dyes and pigments behave unpredictably. US flags are a great way to demonstrate this because, unlike a piece of clothing, everyone knows what a US flag is supposed to look like. (This also impacts night vision stuff, as a result of which military folks have special patches that are intended to be legible in IR.)

This was shot with an original Canon 5D with a black and white IR conversion (720nm I think) and an old Nikon 105mm f/2.5 K-type.

I spotted this flag from Caltrain while riding to visit a friend in Santa Cruz, then spent a few hours using google street view to figure out where specifically it was located and how to get there.