For sale E-M5 MkI converted to IR

[raichea]

*** REDUCED *** £400+shipping

This is an E-M5 converted to infrared by Protech Repairs a while ago. Sample IR pictures taken with it can be seen here.

Body with cap.
Flash in pouch
Strap
Two 3rd-party batteries
USB cable
Manual
Software CD
Original box

Also includes:
Olympus HLD-6 battery grip
Original box

The IR conversion uses a 665nm IR filter to allow false colour shots to be created. In order to take traditional 720nm IR images, you need to add a 720nm filter to the lens.

Thanks to the conversion, you can take IR images without using the long shutter speeds needed when you just put a 720nm filter in front of an unconverted body. The conversion itself costs £300.

I'm looking for £450 but will consider offers.

[Kami]

A quick bump: I'd recommend trying IR. I don't use my IR-converted camera all the time, but enjoy the occasions when I do !

[raichea]

Now reduced to £400+shipping

[cameronlyall]

I am interested if still available

[raichea]

It is still available... I've just dropped the price.

[cameronlyall]

Can you post pictures of the camera - and how well does it focus was it adjusted during the conversion?

[Edman]

Can you post full res shots taken with the camera?

[raichea]

Can't post pictures of the camera until later. It's in excellent condition though - very well looked after. I'll post some later today if I can.

Regarding focusing, I don't believe adjustment is necessary for mirrorless cameras as the focusing is done on the sensor, not a separate AF subsystem. It's possible that some adjustment was made, I suppose but I'm not aware of it. Either way the focusing seems fine - take a look at the full-res image linked below.


You can see some sample images at the link in the first post.

Here's a link to a full-res image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6qwdc1iva...10004.jpg?dl=0

1/50 @ f/11, ISO 200. Slightly smaller than the sensor size due to a slight crop to rotate by a couple of degrees. Taken with a Tamron DiIII 14-150mm lens (at 14mm) - not the sharpest lens but not bad.

[Petrochemist]

Originally Posted by raichea

Regarding focusing, I don't believe adjustment is necessary for mirrorless cameras as the focusing is done on the sensor, not a separate AF subsystem. It's possible that some adjustment was made, I suppose but I'm not aware of it.

You are quite right, mirrorless cameras use the main sensor for focusing, so will focus whatever light the sensor sees. at exactly the same optical distance.
IR images CAN be soft due to an extension of chromatic aberration, as the lenses are being used outside their design parameters into regions where the lens is not well corrected. I suspect my 'full spectrum' camera sometimes suffers from this as it can be seeing somewhat more ~400nm to 1100nm in the same image. A 665nm conversion will not have this extreme of the issue, and even with my wide wavelength range it's never been a huge issue.

[raichea]

Originally Posted by Petrochemist

.... and even with my wide wavelength range it's never been a huge issue.

Thanks for the corroboration.

I wouldn't think you use a full-spectrum conversion without either an IR, UV or visible bandpass filter in place so the lens wouldn't have to focus the full range anyway, surely?

[Kami]

My conversion was done by another company than Protech, and they wanted a lens to help make sure it was working correctly. But it works fine with all my many lenses - better with some than others, but that's usually down to the lens design and in particular some have hot spots, rather than having focussing issues.



Mine is a full-spectrum conversion, like Petrochemist's, and when I use without filters, it can be noticeably soft. With filters, the images are much sharper (usually - depends on lens).


Basically, if you have a few lenses, some will give better results than others.
With IR, my Pany 12-32 is very good; the 14-42 Oly (mark 1) is almost as good; my 9-18 4/3 with adapter doesn't give such good results, but is okay. My Sigma 60/2.8 is great. Some manual lenses are terrible ! Some give "interesting" results; others are very good.



Some of these lenses mentioned stay pretty good when used full-spectrum, others become better, others worse. All generally get softer, owing to more wavelengths being refracted, but this would not apply to raichea's camera, as it is IR-only.


(As an aside, I have a Sigma SD10, too, and one of my Sigma zoom lenses is fine when used normally, but gives out-of-focus quarter to only one side of the image when IR - it's unuseable !)

[Kami]

Oh, and I really like some of my full-spectrum, oddly-coloured, soft pictures - of people in particular, but that's just me :-)

[Petrochemist]

Originally Posted by raichea

Thanks for the corroboration.

I wouldn't think you use a full-spectrum conversion without either an IR, UV or visible bandpass filter in place so the lens wouldn't have to focus the full range anyway, surely?

Many of my shots with the camera are with a filter in place but certainly not all. My native lenses don't have particularly high IR transmission particularly at longer wavelengths so that might help.
As an example here's a panorama taken FS without a filter fitted which doesn't immediately jump out as having a significant non visual component.
View from Carnasserie castle_stitch small by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr


FWIW I've never found the UV sensitivity of my converted camera to be usable (and have seen comments from converters basically saying their MFT conversions are not suitable for UV). This has had me considering splashing out on a converted NEX5, which does see UV well.

[Petrochemist]

Originally Posted by Kami

Oh, and I really like some of my full-spectrum, oddly-coloured, soft pictures - of people in particular, but that's just me :-)

I love some of mine, but find it surprising how much of the image often stays the same as the visual scene.
This one (Fully Panasonic so just a link) https://flic.kr/p/rFuQaP only really differs in the teams clothing - all the browns seen are visually black, matching the car.
While this one https://flic.kr/p/mptiuk has all the right colours just getting IR character in the eyes & to some extent complexion.

[raichea]

Fascinating... didn't realise shooting without a filter would even give something usable. Thanks for the tip.