Infrared with the M system

barbara j wrote:

TimCastleman wrote:

Thank you, what filter did you go with? I'm thinking the 590.

With a full spectrum conversion you have your choice of the entire range by adding an external filter to the lens. Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to convert a camera to a single bandwidth. My camera is a full spectrum conversion, and I shop bandwidth filters on ebay. My first filter was a "new, old stock" kolari duplicating the filter that had been removed from the sensor. I have also seen some really nice images shot with the cheap Chinese filters that were flooding ebay but haven't tried any yet.

This is an older thread, but glad I revisited

That's true enough, and was also my reasoning in going full spectrum. I wanted the ability to do astrophotography (IR cut filter which allows visible and IR up to about 700 nm) and 'Super Blue' (visible blue + IR) as well as experiment with different IR ranges. Some day I might try UV photography, although UV-pass filters are quite expensive ($150 - $200) and a lot of lenses don't play well with UV.

However, it does almost always mean I put some sort of filter on the lens to use the full spectrum camera. I can't just swap lenses with a non-converted camera I shoot with at the same time, and every time I put a different lens on the converted camera I have to mount a filter on it.

Some people don't want that hassle and prefer to have a dedicated IR conversion with their choice of filter mounted directly on the sensor, replacing the factory sensor hot mirror filter(s). A good 'middle' choice for a conversion in my opinion would be a 590 nm conversion, so that any lens you put on the camera would already be ready for 'super-color' IR which is a great choice, and can also be readily converted to B&W for higher-contrast IR (although it may not be as high contrast as a 720 nm or 850 nm filter).

With a permanent 590 filter, you'd also have the option of using a deeper IR filter, such as a 720 nm, 850 nm, or 950 nm filter, so you still have quite a bit of choice.

A 590 nm conversion would not allow you to do 'Super Blue' (visible blue + IR such as a Tiffen #47 filter or Kolari Super Blue), or visible (Kolari hot mirror filter), or visible + hydrogen-alpha (Tiffen hot mirror filter), or Yellow + IR (Tiffen Yellow #8, #12, or #15 filter), or Green + some IR (Hoya Green X1 filter), but many folks don't care about those options.