Monday, February 25, 2008

D-70 Infrared Conversion


I had mentioned on an earlier post that I had converted my old back-up camera a Nikon D70 to Infrared. I am absolutely thrilled with the results. I did the conversion myself with the help of a tutorial from Life Pixel.

I read on their web site that the Nikon D70 was one of the simplest digital cameras to convert to infrared. I purchased Life Pixel's custom glass Infrared filter to replace the hotmirror I was taking out. You can read the whole process HERE.

The whole process of the conversion took about 40 minutes, I did have to re-open the camera a few times to make a better connection of some of the electronics. One of the neat things about the conversion is that you no longer need to shoot through a dark Infrared R72 filter to produce an infrared image.

I use to use an older Olympus snap and shoot to shoot IR photos using the R72 filter method. You needed a tripod to shoot as the exposures where very long, often having to focus the camera before putting the dark filter on.

With this new conversion the image in the viewfinder is clear as normal and you don't have the the density of the R72 filter to effect your shutter speeds. I can hand hold the camera or just have shutter speeds fast enough to freeze the movement of plants and trees from the wind.

Here are a few more images from Florida. I look forward to winter ending here in Colorado so I can shoot more images.




8 comments:

Will said...

Love it David! Thanks for taking the time to post this. I have and old D70 in the closet somewhere.....

WA

Chad Banning said...

Hello my name is Chad and I haven't had a Tejada fix in three weeks... Sorry David, I'm just jones'n for a new post. I know you are ridiculously busy.

P.S. I just attended one of David Hobby's seminars this past Saturday and he mentioned a couple of nice things about you. I just sat there all smug... "oh yeah, I've studied his work. You don't have to tell me how well he works with speedlights." LOL

Have a good one.

Unknown said...

SO you think the conversion process is pretty simple? I have a D70s in the closet and have been thinking of doing this for a while but was a bit concerned about getting some dust int he sensor and then getting into some mad vicious circle of dust>open camera> clean > close > dust> rinse repeat.

Now that I have my d300 I think its time to take the plunge and the cost difference between doing it yourself and having them do it is significant enough to try it myself.

Unknown said...

Like Robert, I have a D300 as well, and look forward to converting my D70. I have electronics repair skills, but I am also hesitant of doing it myself. It is the ribbon cables that give me pause. How hard were they to put back in?

David Tejada said...

It took a few attempts but I got it. You should have no problem. DT

JamPlugs said...

so, from what I understand...

If I wanted to convert my D70, I would still need to but a filter to put over my sensor? $ 145? Right??

David Tejada said...

Ron: Click on the link for Life Pixel within this post, they have all the info you need. DT

arcturus said...

Hi David...thanks for the post. Did you have to do any focus adjustment after installing the filter? Lifepixel does this when they do the conversion but does not show any instructions on this...

Thanks