Every now and then I stumble upon some golden nugget of photographic information that makes me downright gleeful. (You can picture my nerdy smile and creative brain firing.) So, imagine my surprise when I learned something new about a camera I actively photograph with (and even produced a video on).
My Sony F-828 is one of my favorite old digital cameras ever. It’s quirky, functional, and has an excellent sensor and lens. I still shoot with it almost every week and enjoy every second. Little did I know that beyond the unique RGBE sensor (the only one ever produced) the camera also has another wild photographic concept: a moving hot mirror filter.
See the full specs for the Sony F-828 camera here, and the full specs for the Sony F-717 here.
Movable Hot Mirror Filter
Starting with the Sony F-717, and later the F-828, Sony included a special “night mode” into their F series cameras. This semi-automatic mode moved a hot mirror out of the way of the sensor so that the camera could now pick up infrared light. This essentially turned the camera into a night vision camera, much like a game trap camera would do. As an aside, the F-717 even had two IR lights on the front of the lens that would turn on in this mode to illuminate a pitch black scene even more.
This is fun, but limiting for those that want to shoot infrared creatively. It is limited to auto modes, and will not work in daylight settings. Enter, the magnet hack.
The $10 Magnet Hack
What makes the built-in movable hot mirror filter even more interesting is that it can be tripped externally using a powerful enough magnet. Using this $10 magnet found on eBay, and placing the magnet in just the right spot, you’ll hear a “click” and the hot mirror will flip to be either active or inactive. This enables you to shoot infrared images regardless of the mode the camera is in or lightning conditions. This means you can shoot infrared in full manual mode in the daylight, and that’s exactly what you want for creative shots.
As an aside, if you want to filter out visible light and just allow infrared for special effects, here are the cheap filters that I have bought and use:
720nm filter I use – good for false color infrared with a little color information.
850nm filter I use – good for dramatic black and white infrared photos.
In case my links break, or the item becomes unavailable, this is the name of the magnet I bought: Neodymium Rare Earth Magnets N52 Grade 3/8″ x 1″
Check out my video below explaining the hack and seeing some more results.
Let me know if you have any questions about this hack, and what you think of it.
Until next time, happy snappin’
