Full spectrum

Full spectrum

For several years, I’ve had a Lumix camera that has been converted to infrared, which I’ve used for portraits, figure work and even, occasionally, landscapes. It’s been interesting, and the results have been great, but almost as soon as I’d had it done I regretted not having a full-frame camera converted. And I’ve also become curious about the idea of a ‘full spectrum’ conversion – one that leaves the sensor with no filter in front of it so that it is sensitive to a range of wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet.

Well – I’ve had it done now. It’s actually been a plus that I didn’t have it done sooner, as I’ve been able to have an older Alpha 7R converted, but one that has a 42mp sensor and image stabilisation. And there are some subtleties (aren’t there always?) It starts with the fact that my camera is now sensitive to more wavelengths than my eyes… Sadly, although the camera sees the beyond violet pingle, and the almost heat-wavelength blibble, for you and me to appreciate them, they need to be translated into the same old boring visible colours.



I am right at the start of quite a long trail of discovery, because of the many different ways that it’s possible to use the camera now. It even gives quite strange and lovely colours entirely without a filter… There isn’t as much sharpness as there might be without the conversion, as the lens is not capable of focussing IR, visible and UV light at the same point at the same time.

Although UV light is a wee bit of a problem, if you want to make a lot of it in the pictures… Although people still tend to buy a UV filter as a matter of course, there’s one really effective way of blocking UV in your pictures – use a modern lens… I shall be exploring the possibilities of my older lenses, which are, apparently, more likely to pass UV. It does seem possible, though, that a heavy blue filter will lead to pictorially interesting results.

There’s plenty more fun in store: Edward Noble’s website lists and rates a large number of lenses for their tendency towards hotspots with infrared, and my everyday 85mm Sony lens ranks quite low down. Intriguingly, Samyang lenses rate rather well, so it’s possibly not a matter of more modern lenses doing worse…



Please wish me luck! And if anyone has a filter that blocks visible light and infrared, I’m interested in doing a deal. Whatever happens, though, I already have IR filters that will allow me to shoot IR images with all the glowing foliage and black skies that involves (when the weather isn’t as cloudy and grey as it was yesterday!)

The conversion was carried out very rapidly by Alan Burch of infraredcameraconcersions.com, and the price was lower than you might expect. However – mirrorless cameras only. The complications of optical viewfinders and separate AF modules make DSLRs massively unattractive for IR and UV work.