Is it possible to get my pentax.....

[YoungPic]

to shoor IR. Ive recently bought a 40d so my old pentax is just sitting on the shelf and i was wondering is it possible to change it to a dedicated IR camera? and if it is what needs to be done?

 

[iflynething]

If it's digital, take out the filter in front of the sensor. I know there are conversion companies out there, but I dont' know of any specific names. That'd be pretty cool though.














Or....















You could use the IR filter

~Michael~

 

[Garbz]

OR
You could use the IR filter

OR do it properly and do both. Replace the lowpass filter on the sensor with an IR pass filter. That way you can still autofocus, look through the viewfinder, shoot handheld, AND get a wicked IR effect.

I have no idea who does this service, but the technically minded can often do this themselves. Not you will need to go in through the back of the camera. The sensor can not be sufficiently accessed in cleaning mode to get the filter off. The process itself should be as easy as dismantling the camera to get to the sensor, and removing a piece of bluish looking glass from the front of the sensor (it is normally held in place by a retention clip).
I couldn't find a tutorial on it, but if you do attempt it just be careful to keep your fingers away from the flash discharge capacitor (large and round). That will hurt if you touch it.

 

[iflynething]

fingers away from the flash discharge capacitor (large and round). That will hurt if you touch it.

I'm sure it would more than hurt

~Michael~

 

[usayit]

As Garbz said.. do both BUT I wouldn't recommend doing the "IR conversion" on a newly purchased camera. There are tons of inexpensive digital cameras that you can do this conversion. In the early days of digital IR photography, the Canon G1 was a very popular camera to convert:

http://www.kleptography.com/notes-irconvert.htm

 

[YoungPic]

the camera im planing to do it on is a pentax istdl, so its my old one that i dont use anymore since i bought a canon 40d and started to invest into some L glass. i want to do it on the pentax because i simply dont use it and i would like to do IR without the hassle of film

 

[Garbz]

I'm sure it would more than hurt

~Michael~

If you lick the terminals, stab them into your chest, or are silly enough to go back for more maybe, but trust me from my unfortunate experience it doesn't hurt nearly as much as touching the 240v line, which didn't kill me either. :goodvibe:

I will say you don't need a coffee after hitting the mains voltage, but the camera cap only really hurts.

 

[Johnboy2978]

http://www.lifepixel.com/index.html
I'm sure something exists for Pentax as well. I've read though that Pentax doesn't respond very favorably to IR due to a lower sensitivity than makers such as Canon or Nikon. I'm kind of in the same boat. I would really like to add this ability but I have a k10d which I wouldn't consider using it on, and even though my *ist DS is older, I don't want to completely wreck it with doing some that is not reversible by me.