Looking into converting to IR...

[minicoop1985]

Alright, IR's got me intrigued, and I think I need to give it a shot. I can't risk sacrificing my 7D for a lot of reasons, so what's a good, cheapo (emphasis on cheap in case I screw it up, but with a decent enough sensor) used Canon EOS body that I can convert? I really, really wanna try this. We're on a river here, so there's a lot of perfect locations for it. Thanks, guys.

 

[Gavjenks]

There aren't any, really. It's not like you can magically get away with having a crap camera in infrared but not in visual. If you want the same quality and speed and convenience and ability to capture moments you're used to in visible and equal keeper rates, you need equally good equipment, but simply in IR.

In fact, for equal power and convenience if anything you would need BETTER equipment, due to the inherent disadvantage that the AF sensors in all commercial cameras today are based on visible light, not IR. So you can only ever use either mirror-down AF for one single calibrated PRIME lens, or you have to autofocus in live view mode.



So how cheap and old you go is simply how much you're willing to limit your abilities within this experiment, which is not really a question anybody can answer for you. IR already brings a disadvantage in that IR light focuses differently than visible (mentioned above), and any cheaper you go versus your current camera, you're just piling on that much more inconvenience on top of that initial penalty. Just gotta choose where, for you, is the best balance of dollars versus convenience penalty.

 

[minicoop1985]

That's where I'm torn. I don't wanna drop a lot of money without knowing what I'm getting into. At this point, I'm mainly just wondering if there's a particular Rebel body or something of the like that's worth nothing used and responds well to IR conversion so I can use my current lenses (OK, fine, lens) and get some decent image quality without dropping massive amounts of money. If the camera is cheap enough, hell, I'll do it myself. I have no qualms with manual focus-in fact, most of my fun photos lately have been manual. I appreciate the information, though, as I see you're converting a Rebel yourself.

To solve the "I have no idea what I'm getting into" problem, I spent the night converting my old Kodak EasyShare to IR. It's working, and I'll give it a real test tomorrow.

 

[Overread19 7]

You might contact one of the service centres that performs the operation to change cameras into IR. They might have a wider working understanding than most average users (most who do IR might only convert one camera so won't have much breadth of experience). They could suggest a good quality body that performs well whilst being a cheap option.

 

[petrochemist119 144]

Why stick to a EOS body?

I find electronic viewfinders a huge bonus for IR. You can get a full spectrum conversion add filters to the front to change sensitivity and still see to frame the image. I use a micro 4/3 camera that I brought pre converted which was relatively cheap (£150 with postage, whilst conversion cost is typically £250). It can be used with EOS lenses in aperture priority & manual mode (I don't have any canon lenses but use PK, M42, c-mount... as well as native lenses)

horse IR by Analyst 1, on Flickr


I also have a Sony DSC-V1 which is a 5MP compact with 'Nightshot' enabling IR sensitivity to be switched on. IQ is quite good enought to print to A4 or use on-line. The camera itself was only £15 but I had spend more than that to mount filters on it properly.

nightshot ir DSC00575a by Analyst 1, on Flickr

If you're interested in IR the newly reformed infra-red forum might be of interest Home Global Infrared Photography Village

 

[Gavjenks]

I can tell you that the T2i I had converted works splendidly.

Of the whole lineup, I can't imagine that any other bodies would work particularly better, with the exception of the 70D (due to the need for live view autofocus which it excels at), but that's NOT a cheap body, obviously. Here are a couple shots from my converted T2i:


It's still not super cheap, though. I just happened to have one left over when I went to 6D

I find electronic viewfinders a huge bonus for IR.

That's a really good idea. I'm not sure the M4/3 route is still going to save you money if you have no lenses in that format yet, but an EVF would indeed be really nice, and mirrorless cameras in general are not a bad choice since you aren't paying for a mirror that you can't really use anyway.

 

[minicoop1985]

Wow, Gav, those are FANTASTIC and exactly what I'm looking for. I'm thinking of staying with EOS for the fact that I have one EF lens (yes, I only have one lens for my 7D, go ahead and laugh me off of here). The mention of an EVF has my attention-Sony SLT cameras might be pretty good for this. I was bored today and converted my wife's old Lumix (has an EVF) and even made a filter for it to try it out. Gavjenks, what filters were those done with? I have a few ideas that would end up similar to the first one. I can't wait until spring now...... Getting antsy! Thanks for the help. And Petrochemist, I really like the one done with the Nightshot.

 

[Gavjenks]

The filter is a sensor filter installed by LifePixel -- their "standard IR" version. No lens filters. PP was I don't even remember, I forget every time if I don't do IR for a month or more I lose it. And I haven't been shooting IR recently cause none of my models I have available want to look creepy and vampiric, and landscapes in winter don't really look much different in IR.

Something like cranking the colors in a RAW converter, then the swapping channels thing, and then using the hue slider in photoshop to pick color pairs that look good for that image. Otherwise normal PP stuff.

 

[minicoop1985]

Ah, ok. I'm getting mostly purple, and I have absolutely no idea what the wavelength is that's coming through the film on the P&S I converted. If I get serious about this, I'll get some real filters or step up to a DSLR/SLT/Mirrorless or something

 

[Gavjenks]

Note that part of the sensor conversion is REMOVING the filter that lots of cameras come with that filters out infrared light. Then they replace it with the one that blocks visible and UV.

If you only use a lens filter, it works, but you have filters blocking everything basically, and the only light that you're photographing with is the little bit that gets through the inefficiencies of the sensor filter, so your exposures are like 50x longer than with a proper full conversion. You might need 2 minutes to take a landscape instead of the fully converted camera that gets as much or more light usually than visible (My T2i is often shooting at 1/2000th of a second, etc. during the day)

 

[minicoop1985]

In the two cameras I've done over the past day now, I've ripped them to shreds and taken out those miniscule (the sensors are freaking tiny-these are point and shoots) pieces of pinkish glass. Still have them, since I haven't taken out the trash yet. I didn't add a new filter in there-I've made really ghetto ones from overexposed developed film. However, I did order a 720nm filter, so that should be here soon.

 

[petrochemist119 144]

Note that part of the sensor conversion is REMOVING the filter that lots of cameras come with that filters out infrared light. Then they replace it with the one that blocks visible and UV.

If you only use a lens filter, it works, but you have filters blocking everything basically, and the only light that you're photographing with is the little bit that gets through the inefficiencies of the sensor filter, so your exposures are like 50x longer than with a proper full conversion. You might need 2 minutes to take a landscape instead of the fully converted camera that gets as much or more light usually than visible (My T2i is often shooting at 1/2000th of a second, etc. during the day)

The level of increase is highly dependant on the hot mirror fitted to the camera. Canon use a strong hot mirror block practically all the IR, whilst some other cameras (particularly older ones) have relatively weak hot mirrors. My old Pentax k100d has a particularly weak hot mirror so that handheld IR is possible with it such as this stitched panorama:

Infra red Panorama by Analyst 1, on Flickr

A converted camera would of course have been able to use much lower ISO & a smaller aperture and still have quicker times.

 

[minicoop1985]

That's awesome.


I see what you mean about handheld IR. It's impressive how fast of a shutter speed the Panasonic tends to use now. I throw it in aperture priority, f8, and let it rip-ISO 100, never slower than 1/500. I can't wait for my real IR filter to get here so I can do nothing with this until spring.