Quicky:Mod Compact Digital Camera into IR Camera+Get IR filter for laser...

This is going to be a quick post...working....

Purpuse of this modification is to turn an ordinary compact digital camera into an Infra Red camera....and more

All digital compact cameras have a rectangular in shape(usually) small coated glass filter to cut out IR radiation.This piece of glass sits right after the SSD sensor of the camera....

IF you are used to dismantling electronic equipment and IF you dont care about the camera that much then you might want to do it....

A good reason altering a camera like that is of course IR photography with a digital camera....
Another good reason is to have a camera that can see in IR and visible...of course you can cut out visible,if you desire....So that you can see the IR radiation of a laser....From focusing an 808, to see if IR escapes from DPSS..
Also you get the small glass high quality IR filter from the camera..with no or slight mod (with a dremel fine, diamond rotary cutter or polisher)maybe it can fitted it in a low-mid(further tests needed about power..) DPSS laser.

All you have to do is dismantle the camera carefully(ground yourshelf and tools)piece by piece,screw by screw reach the SSD sensor(the digital "eye/film") that sits after the lens of the camera,find a small piece of glass covering the sensor(it has a reddish/greenish reflection),take out carefully (be carefull of dust or other particles not to fall in the sensor,it's a pain in the @#$ to clean it..),usually it comes out very easy...Put the camera together and ...you have yourshelf a IR+visible camera...Now,if you don't want visible light to be present
either you have to buy an photographic IR filter(expensive) or find any sort of filter that lets only IR to pass(difficult) or use 3 blue gel sheets (for coloring lighting)
and 1-2 red gel sheets...(easy,cheap=>wallmart for US)-carefull not to wrinckle them-
You can cut them in shape of the removed glass IR filter and put the gel sheets all together in place instead of removed filter...or cut in size and put in front of the lens when camera operates,DO NOT USE GLUE AT ALL...
That's about it
(the pic shows a removed IR cutter from Sony compact digital camera...)
Have fun with it...Really nice and un-earthy pictures also...
Can also work as night sight if you provide IR light...
..My avatar is a pic with that sony IR of mine....

Before you break your camera, you need to put in a piece of glass where the filter was in order to maintain the (relatively) same optical path for your camera. Otherwise, you won't have any autofocus on your camera. I've done this with two optically glued pieces of microscope slides, and it works nicely. The IR filter in your camera is also not really made for filtering out the kinds of IR intensities you may subject it to from your laser.

An easier solution is to grab the filter from a webcam (assuming it has one), also because many are manual focus and it makes them more sensitive to low-light. Hell, you can just buy the filters for cheap too. I think I saw some for $1 each or so. They may not be up to snuff either.

Yeap...:gj:

Very interesting stuff!

I have a Sony DSC-V1 which has so-called "nightshot". Just like their camcorders, you can record images in near-darkness thanks to a built-in IR light.

As for the internals, my educated guess would be that when the operator turns on nightshot, the internal IR filter is shifted out of the way. In any case, with some effort (read: IR pass filter plus ND filters...), it can be used for IR photography but with a bit less effort, might be handy when trying to INDIRECTLY view the o/p of an IR laser... .

I'd try it but I don't own an IR laser and the stray OP from my 532nm modules does not seem to be enough to make a "visible" impact...

Yes, that's what happens. They also "fixed" it so that you can't go into nightshot mode when it's bright out. People were supposedly using the IR as a means to look through clothing. If you modify a digital camera to see IR you can take some really neat photos without having to do long exposures. I did it with an old camera from eBay, and it's a lot of fun (and I'm not talking about being a pervert). For the price of that lifepixel mod, you can buy all the parts necessary to modify hundreds of digital cameras by buying optical glue (cost me about $65 shipped), and microscope slides to get the right thickness ($5 or so for a box). It might be a nice way to pay for lasers.

IR photography rocks...