Canon camera mod!
So I never finished my Cheshire Cat painting, but I have a good excuse. My friend and awesome photographer Jonny Carrol wanted to remove the IR filter from his Canon Digital Rebel 300D. Using this great tutorial, I underwent one of my most nerve-racking projects to date. Here is a photo-montage.
Workspace setup!
Back casing and LCD screen mount removed, ribbon cables unplugged and protective case desoldered and removed.
Circuitboard removed, about to remove the CMOS chip. Yikes!
The delicate CMOS unit before I took it apart and removed the IR filter (the purple glass thing).
Carefully dissecting the CMOS unit, removing the plastic frame and gaskets that house the IR filter.
The naked CMOS chip. This is what gathers the light in the camera and translates it into digital data, kind of like undeveloped film.
My sophisticated system for gluing the new glass into its housing. It was scary since one drop of glue on the new glass, and Id have to start all over!
Success! Time to clean it up with isopropal alcohol and a microfiber cloth and put her all back together!
All back together again...except for the grounding plate...looks like i skipped a step and will have to pull the glass holding off again, uuugh. Luckily its an easy fix.
Sweet, last step before just reconnecting/resoldering everything. Added a small .1mm spacer to compensate for the difference in thickness between the old filter and new glass. This will ensure that autofocus will still work.
And that about wraps it up. After that last step, it was all smooth sailing with the reassembly. Id post pics but its just the same steps in reverse and would be very boring. Fun project, look forward to trying similar projects in the future. I will also update when I receive pictures taken with the camera post-mod so you can compare the results!
NIIIICE!!!