Was sitting at home bored looking for a Microsoft Office cd to install on the computer when I came across my old Fuji finepix A303.

This is a terrible camera.

Cheap and nasty even back when I bought it and never going to be used again.

That got me wondering, can I convert it to infrared?

Got my screwdriver out and started fiddling. Finally got the thing open and got the lens off the sensor. A slight pull and the low pass filter is off. This is easy, I was thinking. Almost too easy... Fit it back together and sure enough it won't take a picture - "lens cover error". So I opened it back up, followed the switch and realised a wire had come unplugged. Put it back together and hey presto - it's back to taking horrible pictures!

But put an IR filter in front of the lens now and those horrible pictures become IR horrible pictures! Handheld speeds and perfect IR! Took a picture of a bunch of flowers and sure enough they come out white. The focus and metering seem acceptable too.

Now, it's only 3MP and really cant take decent pictures in low light but I can't wait until tomorrow morning to try it out in the sunshine in the garden. This is only a novelty really but maybe I can pick up a slightly better handheld cam cheaply and convert that.

[note: I would attach a picture but can't really work out how. I think I need a flikr account or similar to link to]