Cool Camera Hack
A few days ago I bought this webcam, honestly mostly because is costs next to nothing and I was afraid I’d wreck it.
I carefully disassembled it and unscrewed the lens assembly.
I slowly ran a file along the lens housing until the plastic wore down to the lens itself. Just in front of the lens is a tiny square of reddish glass. The red tint is an infrared filter which blocks all IR light and lets only visible light through.
I replaced the glass square with two layers of the black ends of regular photographic films negatives, trimmed to the same size as the IR filter. This should now block all visible light and allow only IR light through. I reassembled the lens assembly and put the camera back together.
I now had a cheap IR camera.
What can I do with it?
- Take cool eerie pictures, for one thing. Note: neither of those pics were taken by me and both are copyright their respective owners. They are only there as an EXAMPLE of IR phtography.
The photo above is a a look at the back of a ten dollar bill I photographed.
PS: I don’t have to say that you should only do this is you understand that there’s a chance you might ruin the camera, and are OK with that risk, right? This hack voids any conceivable warranty.
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