This is a copy of a post from my old Blogger site – Circa 2010. Brought back to life here now that Google + and associated data is being closed on April 28th 2019!

Not so much Retro as oldish Tech Hack

One of our old digital camera’s got scared and leaked its battery juice all over its insides and stopped working … so

Easy project to convert it to an IR camera whilst cleaning the acidy goo from its innards;

Vivitar 5188 – 5MP CMOS camera – Dead cheap and came with a wicked underwater housing;

Step 1, remove all the screws;

Step 2, remove the front and back case. Be carefull of any wires that are still connected.;

Step 3, carefully unscrew and remove the lens assembly;

Notice how the lens is red in colour, this is the filter that blocks IR light in normal operation. This has to be removed (carefully of course).

I did try to scrape away the red coating, but scratched the lens 🙁 – removing it seemed the sensible option as its not a focusing lens and not really needed!

Step 4, get yourself down to the local photo processing place and ask for some film that has been developed but has no image (It should be almost completely black when looking through it) – There may also be some on your own negatives. I was lucky and had 1 frame of completely exposed and developed film with no image on it.

Cut out 2 disks the same size as the lens and place them back to back so no visible light can be seen.

Secure them in to the lens housing with 2 spots of superglue (1 on each side) making sure you do not cover the screw thread on the lens.

Step 5, re-assemble the lens in the camera holder and tighten as far as it will go, but do not over tighten as you will touch and then destroy the CMOS sensor and this mod will be useless!

Step 6, start taking surreal alien like pictures with your new IR wavelength camera!

What do you think then eh?