Infrared Video Using the CVS Camcorder

If you've ever thought (near) infrared pictures looked cool, this is the mod for you.  It's pretty simple to do but there's a risk of damaging your camcorder in the process.

WARNING: I am not responsible for any damage, injury, loss of bodily functions, loss of life, or anything else that could possibly happen as a result of doing anything on this page.

First you have to get the camcorder open.  I would hope you could find these screws yourself.

Turn the circuit board over and you'll see the lens assembly.  Take a pair of pliers and twist the lens so the threads break free from the glue.  Once it's moving, unscrew the lens the rest of the way.  Try to keep track of how many turns it took to get it off as this will help to get the camcorder back in focus when you put the lens back on.

CAUTION: The imager can be damaged very easily.  Try to keep the imager covered so dust or other small particles won't fall on it.  Also make sure any small pieces of the IR filter are removed from the lens before screwing it back on.  I have some gray spots on one of my camcorders because I didn't clean it up enough.  I could probably get rid of these spots but haven't gotten around to it yet.

There should be a thin reddish piece on the back of the lens.  This is the IR filter you need to remove.  Be careful when removing it so you can save this and put it back when you're done with your IR recording.  I broke both of mine, so I need to find a replacement if I ever want to take normal videos again.  It would be much easier if you just didn't break them in the first place.

 

Screw the lens back on and place the board back onto the battery side of the camcorder shell.  Don't screw anything back in yet because you'll probably have to readjust the lens (twist it in or out)  to make the picture clearer.  After you have your camcorder back in focus, put everything back together and you've got an IR camcorder!

There are two things I can think of that could make this mod much more worthwhile.
-Use this as active nightvision.  Get some kind of IR LED assembly or IR LED flashlight so the camera can see things that you can't.
-Get a visible light filter so the camera only sees IR instead of visible and IR at the same time.  The cheapest visible light filter that I know of is from the developed film of an unused picture.  Put a couple of layers of this in front of the lens and it should block out most visible light.  For more information on this, visit these two links.

UPDATE: I found my developed film and have put up IR only videos on the page linked below.

I still plan to do the nightvision sometime, check back in a while.

I've put up some videos I've taken with this setup here

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