**SIGH**

Attempt 1 with the Hoya R72 may be unsuccessful. I managed to cut the filter down to the correct size but discovered that in my eagerness and frustration, I left tiny, micro scratches on the filter. It may or may not show up on shots but I'm betting that it will, since dust almost invisible to the naked eye show up when they are on the CCD, these micro scratches may appear too. I'll know for sure when I try to mount the filter tomorrow.

What went wrong? Something I did not factor for. I actually spent the weekend practicing glass cutting on thick sheet glass, familiarizing myself with the feel of the cutter, knowing exactly the amount of pressure required to get that "ripping" sound that tells you that you are scoring the glass correctly. I repeated it again and again until I could get a piece of the exact dimensions required. I was ready...or so I thought.

This morning, I took out a brand new glass-cutter (didn't want to use the other), place the R72 clean, firm cutting board, lined up the R72 against a straight edge, poured oil along the edge to be cut, put the cutter on the R72, applied preasure, pulled it downwards like I'd done during the weekend practices and ... nothing

The R72 glass was much harder than normal sheet glass, actually, it was like tempered glass! AND the brand new cutter was blunt!

The result, I lost my cool and botched the cutting, making some silly slip-ups requireing more cutting and grinding than necessary.

What to do now? Well, first I'm going to try the filter and see if the micro scratches will affect the image. If it doesn't, I'll leave it alone. If it does, I'll follow-up on an idea that came to me when I finally calmed down ... I'll cut the filter again, but this time I'll make it about 3mm longer on each side. Then, I'll take it down to an optician who's got his own lens grinder and pay him a few dollars to grind it down to size for me.

Oh well, I'm still hoping to complete this by Thursday, so if the R72 still refuses to be properly cut by then, I'll put in an ELP.

Wish me luck.

GOOD LUCK!!
Can i borrow your camera when you are done?

Why not send it to Edmunds Optical to cut?

good luck matt. sounds like it's not easy to cut the R72 glass... i think i'll wait for your result and ask someone to cut for me or i may just use ELP filter

I did email them and their reply was "We cannot do a custom cut for just one piece. Minimum must be 25 - 30 pieces."

It's ok actually, all I need to do is to keep my cool and really concentrate while cutting.

Cheers

Maybe you can try optical / spec company. They may be able to cut it for you.
BTW good luck and hope you are successful and share with us your technique.

Life Pixel is now able to convert Canon DSLRs too. Time to convert my D60 liao !

I have to delay my time of converting....
me and my big mouth...
I just loan my fren my newly-bought-2nd-hand D70 for a class.....

The good news is that my second attempt at cutting the R72 is successful.

I can't believe how smooth the process went the second time around, all it took was 2 minutes and 4 straight cuts. Now I've got a piece of rectangular R72 that's 2mm wider on each side than the D70's AA filter. Will be making a trip to the optical shop with the cut filter tomorrow for them to grind to the proper size; yep, I managed to persuade the lady at the shop to do it for me.

I'm almost there!! I'm sooooo clossssee I can almost taste it

good for you!!!!

1 piece only? hmmm

I just found out that i might habe a contact for edmund optics

yeah it's so close for u!!!!

Remember to loan me hor!!! I want to use for the 7th month festives

congrats!

Congrats, did the optical shop do it for a fee or free ?.
One of these days maybe we have a hand on it

Preeeesseeeentinnnnng...

The first (official) test shot from the the new D70i...

(IMG:http://www.pbase.com/image/47376641/original.jpg)



This is just a quick shot taken today in very overcast (no sun) conditions but get a load of the EXIF details:

Aperture: f/4.2
Shutter: 1/800s
Exp Comp: +1.0 (metering with the replacement R72 is inaccurate, it was 1/1250 with exp comp)
ISO: 200
Focal: 34mm
WB: CWB done with ExpoDisc

The actual conversion was a breeze, taking just 20 minutes (first time doing this lah!) the most difficult part was putting back the base cover because the USB port cap had to be slotted in just the right place.

WaaaaHaHaHaHa!!! I can't believe I've finally done it.

Anyone want to try it out? Maybe we can arrange on a Sat morning or afternoon (sorry, Sundays are usually for my kids).

OK, who's next? Hey, maybe I can set up a IR converting service for Asia.

Welll done Matt. 1st test pic looks good. I bet subsequents test shots will be much better in bright sunlight.

You're now the official Nikon IR Mod Guru.

Thanks Teerex,

I'm hoping for some good sun over the next two days since I've got some time off from work.

Here's another quick test shot. This one shows what the camer can do with just a little sunlight. Notice the "color" of the people's hair and the blue skys. This is after a R/B channel swap.

(IMG:http://www.pbase.com/image/47378692/original.jpg)

Lens: D70 Kit Lens (Nikkor 18-70mm AF-S f/3.5-4.5G)
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter: 1/1250s
Exp Comp: +1.3 (metering with the replacement R72 is inaccurate)
ISO: 200
Focal: 18mm
WB: CWB done with ExpoDisc

There'll be more test shots coming but some preliminary test shots done with the Tokina 12-24mm and Sigma 10-20 on the converted D70 (D70i for short) are NOT encouraging. It seems that wide angled lenses have a tendency to hotspots, even when exposure is at 1/500s. I'll need to test this out further.

Cheers
Matt

Ooo, congrats Deadpixel! Looks good man!

One strange thing I encountered

It was mentioned in a couple of sites that the AA filter was 2.5mm thick. However, when I checked it after removing it, it was only about ~1.5mm thick, about the thickness of a Cokin P007.

So it seems that the P007 may be a viable alternative for those who want more saturated "blues"

Hmmmmm.....

I know what you're thinking about

So matt, u going to convert ours?!?!?!?!
Can save money liao....
I want to use Cokin one

And also can show us the examples of the test shots of sigma 10-20?

Ok, here's a quick and dirty test shot for the Sigma 10-20mm. I could only do an indoor shot as there was a very light drizzle outside:

(IMG:http://www.pbase.com/image/47387561/original.jpg)

The obvious thing is that the lens is very wide. This WILL pose a problem for landscape photography as there will be some distortion. It may not be very obvious in this image but the lens is sharp, and will be even more so for normal photography.

Also another thing that is not very obvious is the hotspot. I know I'm nitpicking but if you examine the centre of the photo, you'll notice a brightening and slight loss of contrast. Bearing in mind that this is taken at f/5.6, it may be safe to assume that as the aperture gets stopped down, the spot would become more obvious.

On the other hand, this could be caused by the light streaming in from Funan's skylight roof but if that were the case, than there would be a bigger and more uneven stretch of discoloration.

Actually, I was thinking of charging SG$250 instead of US$250.
Just kidding. I'm still green at this so I'll just get more practice on your camera and a few others but of course a good lunch or dinner would help stablize my shaky hands too.


Cheers
Matt

When I bought the Sensorswipe to clean the CCD, the seller adviced me to keep a bottle of vodka handy to calm my nerves Maybe that would help with ur shaky hands?

Hee! Hee! Hands shaking from hunger, not nervousness

Do you actually use the Sensorswipe? Man those are expensive. I'm using PecPads wrapped around my own SensorSwab created from a $3 rubber spatula I bought from NTUC. Works better than the original.

Oh, for those reading this who are afraid of scratching you CCD, don't worry. The AA filter infront of the CCD is so hard that nothing short of sandpaper is going to scratch it, so don't waste money getting someone else to clean it for you. Be brave and do it yourselves.


This post has been edited by deadpixel on Aug 9 2005, 12:12 AM

Hee hee, i was not so adventurous
I still avoid cleaning the CCD unless bopian

have you tried it on other lens? such as nikkor 12 - 24?

okie can practise on my camera... but then if spolit then i take yours!

good lunch works better for me than dinner...

cannot pratice on mine, i wanna do it myself

One thing that everyone considering the conversion should also think about is:

Has your D70 been treated for the deadly BLOD yet?

If not, the conversion may affect the potentially free repair.

errr what is BLOD?

if the conversaion is done, and we do need repair, how much would that cost me?

how much did u buy the sigma 10-20mm for?

the blinking CF light error? mine have been repaired a few times liao