I felt the need to write an article on converting digital cameras to IR because as a Paranormal investigator I thought it would be advantageous to have a still camera that was capable of filming in total darkness.

The first step in converting is "Know your enemy", in this I mean the nasty little capacitor built on the PCB. It may look small but believe me when you accidently touch it (and you will) it will bite you, So having said that try and wear some protection (and I don't mean a crash helmet and a condom),thin surgical gloves should be adequate.
There are numerous web pages showing you how to convert digital cameras, but unless you have the eyes of an eagle and the patience of a saint, I would not recommend converting, having said that if you have and don`t mind losing sleep as well as a good daylight camera go ahead and try it. I tried it with a Nikon coolpix and regretted it I followed all the instructions and finally after five attempts at getting the new filter I had made out of pieces of film negative onto the filter holder, I managed to put the camera back together only to find I couldn`t see anything with it. So I had to disassemble it only to have it literally fry itself in front of me, it became so unstable I had to throw it out of the front door before it burst into flames.
Ok enough of my tales of a near death experience on with the job in hand.
There is absolutely no need to convert a digital camera to Infra red providing it has two very important settings. These settings are a very high ISO 1600 or higher and a good auto focus illuminator.
The camera we use is a Fuji Finepix 6500 fd
This camera is fantastic we tried some of the other cameras in this range but for some reason the orange illuminators are not as good as the green one (don't ask me why but they aren`t) even a sony a230 didn`t cut it so we stuck with the Fuji and haven't been disappointed yet.
All you need to do is put the camera on the P setting turn off the flash, up the ISO to 3200 and slap an IR light on a flash bracket and away you go, And remember that every thing is slowed down so do not take photos with people milling around as this just creates ghosts, also try and use a tripod and timer where possible the less camera shake the better.
Anyway hope you enjoyed reading this and if you do use this method I would be grateful if you could E-Mail us and let me know how you get on and happy hunting.
Mark