Posted: 6/28/2012 11:57:25 AM EDT
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Ok so I keep hearing about people removing the IR filter from thier cameras for taking pictures of the night sky? is there any truth to this or is it just some Sci-fy BS? thanks |
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Yes, it's real.
Short version: the IR filter built in to most cameras blocks the far end of visible light and lots of invisible light. Removing the filter opens up those portions of the spectrum. Do a google search for "remove IR filter DSLR"; both a regular and an image search. There's lots of good info out there! |
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Quoted:
It's best to buy one already modified, the focus has to be recalibrated, etc... You can find many good units at a reasonable price. I have purchsed two Pentax IR only cameras from user "lianglunche" on eBay.... Only the autofocus, and even that is dependent on the lens, shooting aperture, and what you plan to do with it. If you shoot at f/9 or smaller, and close to infinite focus for the given lens, AF is pretty much spot on. Many manual lenses have an IR focus scale on them too. For astro, you are not using AF, so you won't have to recalibrate anything. You may need to short focus it a bit - ie to get clear focus at 'IR infinity' set the lens to just closer than visible light infinity. If you replace the filter with an all-pass piece of glass (UV+Visible+IR), I'm not sure what happens to the focus. I have a D70s that I converted to IR myself, and I just sold a second D70 that I converted. The D70/D70s are extremely easy to convert, and theyre cheap. |