Mamiya ZD infrared "conversion"
Quote from James Warner on May 20, 2023, 11:40 amSome of you already know, but my little hack was successful and I was able to allow my Mamiya ZD to shoot infrared. I bought a spare IR cut filter cartridge from Japan for $50, removed the IR cut filter and viola. The story is a little more dramatic than that, and a video will come out next week on the main channel documenting and explaining the whole thing.
But in the meantime, here's some pics
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oBz9JF][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52911086883_f84d3f56de_c.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oByNJ2][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52911019565_1dff650092_c.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oBxBJT][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52910787499_818c45b12a_c.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2oBtT5U][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52910058672_da7a27c240_c.jpg[/img][/url]
Some of you already know, but my little hack was successful and I was able to allow my Mamiya ZD to shoot infrared. I bought a spare IR cut filter cartridge from Japan for $50, removed the IR cut filter and viola. The story is a little more dramatic than that, and a video will come out next week on the main channel documenting and explaining the whole thing.
But in the meantime, here's some pics
Quote from HoLun on May 21, 2023, 4:10 amthats awesome, nice to have cameras that can convert without major disassembly.
do you have any issue focusing to infinity without the filter in?
thats awesome, nice to have cameras that can convert without major disassembly.
do you have any issue focusing to infinity without the filter in?
Quote from James Warner on May 22, 2023, 2:07 amQuote from HoLun on May 21, 2023, 4:10 amthats awesome, nice to have cameras that can convert without major disassembly.
do you have any issue focusing to infinity without the filter in?
Luckily both my lenses for the system have IR infinity markers. However anything closer than that is tough, because I'm just guessing without liveview. But removing the filter itself hasn't prevented infinity focusing as far as I can tell.
Quote from HoLun on May 21, 2023, 4:10 amthats awesome, nice to have cameras that can convert without major disassembly.
do you have any issue focusing to infinity without the filter in?
Luckily both my lenses for the system have IR infinity markers. However anything closer than that is tough, because I'm just guessing without liveview. But removing the filter itself hasn't prevented infinity focusing as far as I can tell.
Quote from HoLun on May 22, 2023, 4:11 pmthats really cool, they actually designed it to be used for IR, but yeah IR with DSLR is not as easy as with a mirrorless.
on all the cameras that I converted I need to adjust the sensor/flange distance to accommodate the difference in refraction with the missing filter stack to be able to focus to infinity, the easier ones are the one with sensor adjustment screws, but most of them I need to completely disassemble the thing and put either the sensor frame or the body onto my milling machine to get the correct spacing. I could have just added a piece of glass back in but finding a super flat piece of optical glass in the same thickness is not easy nor cheap. and since I am also into astrophotography, and most people in that circle agrees that less glass in between the better, rathe that be sensor or your eyeball.
my current IR body is an olympus E-M10II I converted, the EVF on it is pretty nice, the 5 axis ibis is awsome, and the hipster retro look is cool too. these older olympus doesnt play nice with some of the panasonic lenses, with the lens stop down you get some crazy striping noise, otherwise i would have kept it normal.
yeah i get pretty excited to see cameras that doesn't need serious mods to do IR, as you can see in the pic of this panasonic G6 I did a while back, its a pain, this one needs quite a bit more machine work then others that I have done.
thats really cool, they actually designed it to be used for IR, but yeah IR with DSLR is not as easy as with a mirrorless.
on all the cameras that I converted I need to adjust the sensor/flange distance to accommodate the difference in refraction with the missing filter stack to be able to focus to infinity, the easier ones are the one with sensor adjustment screws, but most of them I need to completely disassemble the thing and put either the sensor frame or the body onto my milling machine to get the correct spacing. I could have just added a piece of glass back in but finding a super flat piece of optical glass in the same thickness is not easy nor cheap. and since I am also into astrophotography, and most people in that circle agrees that less glass in between the better, rathe that be sensor or your eyeball.
my current IR body is an olympus E-M10II I converted, the EVF on it is pretty nice, the 5 axis ibis is awsome, and the hipster retro look is cool too. these older olympus doesnt play nice with some of the panasonic lenses, with the lens stop down you get some crazy striping noise, otherwise i would have kept it normal.
yeah i get pretty excited to see cameras that doesn't need serious mods to do IR, as you can see in the pic of this panasonic G6 I did a while back, its a pain, this one needs quite a bit more machine work then others that I have done.
Uploaded files: