Canon 10D ir – Pros & Cons
August 12th, 2008
It doesn’t take a specialist to understand the limitations of a 6 year old camera platform. It is never going to be the best, but it is readily available and for knock down prices. There are several to choose from on Ebay most of the time and they go for around £150 in good condition.
The biggest faults are the obvious ones that were corrected in subsequent cameras, so what’s hot and what’s not about the 10D as an infrared camera?
Both the above pictures were taken by Damien Lovegrove using a hand held Canon 10D camera converted for infrared use by ACS limited based in the UK.
Pros
- The camera has a great build quality and feels solid in the hand.
- Good examples are readily available from under £150.
- The controls are in the obvious places and on the whole are well laid out.
- The auto white balance can cope with the extreme red in the pictures. Something that Photoshop or Lightroom can’t do.
Cons
- The screen on the back of the camera is small.
- The in camera processor is slow at showing you a clear picture in playback.
- 6 Megapixels is quite a poor resolution by todays standard.
- The camera is quite a bit bulkier than a modern day equivalent, a 400D for instance.
Taken on the Somerset levels using a Canon 10D ir camera.
24 Comments Add your own
1. martin | August 21st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
There are a couple of other cons with the 10D. First the buffer is very small, which can be an issue if you are shooting RAW (though not if you follow Damien’s advice and shoot jpeg). Second it takes an age to write images to the card. So don’t open the card door or turn off before the red light goes out.
On the plus side, the camera exhibits very low noise, even at high ISO.
2. nick | August 26th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
What was the cost of the IR conversion on the 10D? I have a 20D that might find a second life in IR !
3. martin | August 26th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
£214 including return delivery. They serviced and cleaned the camera at the same time.
4. Gavin Lyons | September 26th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
One of the major cons with the 10D and which is essential for correct/controlled exposure of IR, I believe is the RGB histogram. The 30D was the first Canon D-SLR to introduce this feature. You need to ensure the red channel doesn’t clip.
Regarding mega pixels, the green channel has much more then the red or the blue. So 6MP could turn out to be 1.5MP on the red channel, such is the nature of digital.
However you pictures are wonderful and that’s what matter. I hope to convert my 30D soon.
Gavin
5. Gavin Lyons | September 26th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
IR Picture taken on the 30D – http://blog.i386.com/post/2008/09/Trees-in-Infra-red2c.aspx
6. damien | September 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
The lack of RGB histogram in the 10D is not an issue because you do a custom white balance and all 3 channels are equaled out. The dynamic range is so low that you have several stops of exposure possibilities and still get a great print. I never need to consult a histogram for IR work. The prints from the 10D look fab huge too. I aim to get one of the new 5D Mk2 cameras converted for IR use for a personal project at some time in the new year.
Great shot of trees Gavin.
Damien.
7. Mark Dell | November 4th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Hi again Damien,
My son and I are very keen to convert his trusty old 10D into an Infared camera, where do you send it to ro this conversion?
i am trying to talk him into it after showing him your shots!!
Great idea too!
Mark
8. Mark Dell | November 4th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hi again Damien,
My son and I are very keen to convert his trusty old 10D into an Infared camera, where do you send it to for this conversion?
i am trying to talk him into it after showing him your shots!!
Great idea too!
Mark
9. damien | November 4th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Hi Mark, You can get your sons 10D converted here.
10. Ion Paciu | November 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Hi Damien,
I am a bit confused, as far as I know everyone shoots RAW, you are the only one I heard talking about shooting JPEG. I just noticed Martin’s posting here. (first on the top)
Can you please explain this? This is something I wanted to ask you long time ago (after I read you Prof Wed Phot book).
By the way, a great book .
Many thanks.
Ion
11. Ion | November 18th, 2008 at 10:27 am
oops, I just read the other threads on infrared and I understood why jpeg in IR.
But I am still curious to find out why did you say (in your wedding book) that you would shoot jpeg instead of RAW.
Thanks.
Ion
12. damien | November 18th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Hi Ion,
When I wrote the book, Lightroom was not even useable, Aperture made rough pictures and I was stuck with Capture One. I couldn’t even juggle the order of the pictures in Capture One and the workflow was a real pain. Now that Lightroom is stable and well structured, a Jpeg workflow is not a contender. Before I had the P25 our Fujifilm cameras produced jpegs with a better and more natural colour than most people could get with RAW from any camera platform.
I hope this helps,
Damien.
13. Ion Paciu | November 20th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Many thanks Damien, now is clear.
Regards,
Ion
14. Dave Walpole | January 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 am
Hi – Somerset levels shot has a superb black sky – was your conversion 720nm? I can’t get black skies on my 720nm converted 400d or am I doing things wrong?
Thanks for any advice.
Dave
15. damien | January 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Hi Dave,
My conversion was 720Nm and the blackness of the sky depends on how much contrast you add to that part of the frame in Photoshop. The monochrome file out of the camera is very flat and needs punching up to bring it alive.
I hope this helps.
Damien.
16. Dave Walpole | January 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Aha! Just played with your info and it punches up brilliantly. I noticed my custom wb was also off a little so altered that as well. Many thanks – very useful.
17. Claus Jepsen | February 20th, 2009 at 4:28 am
A year ago I converted a D30 for infraread using the do it yourself guide on lifepixels homepage. I was short of money, so I did not buy a filter of glass, but instead I glued a normal gel filter in the camera and it worked.
But now I want to convert my 10D with a glass filter. You write, that you did a reset of the focusing system. How did you do that?
Claus
18. damien | February 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 am
Hi Claus,
I had my camera professionally converted by ACS. They did the necessary colomation adjustments.
19. terry fallis | August 12th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
hello I have a fuji S5 that I am thinking of getting converted by ACS have you any knowledge of conversion of this camera as it has a different kind of sensor set up? terry
20. damien | August 12th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Hi Terry,
I’m sorry I don’t know about the chip set on the S5. The guys at ACS should be able to advise you. They will know if the process is suitable for your Fuji camera. I hope it is okay.
Damien.
21. terry fallis | August 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
thanks damien they are listing a price for conversion so I imagine its got to work OK.terry
22. Sara Wager | May 12th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Hi Damian, Bought your 10D back end of last year. Would be really grateful if you could answer a quick question. Did you ever print any pics from this camera and if so – How big did they comfortably go?
Many thanks, a great camers by the way.
Regards
Sara
23. damien | May 12th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Hi Sara,
I have a wall of 6, 20″x16″ box frame blocks on my studio wall plus one 36″ x 18″ panoramic acrylic. The shots were all taken in Malaysia and I think they could go bill board size. I add a bit of softened grain to give the shots a surreal kind of look. I have produced numerous prints for couples too, as I used the 10d IR at each wedding when the sun was shining.
Kind regards, Damien.
24. Sara Wager | May 12th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Brilliant, thanks for that Damian.
Living out in Spain now and the IR just seems so much better out here than in the UK. Watch this space!!!!!
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