My trusty Canon 6D is now over 14 years old and it’s been an admirable photographic companion in that time. But it’s since been replaced by multiple generations, including my more recent Canon EOS R5 (not to mention my $8,000 Leica), meaning the 6D has spent a lot of its later life on a shelf. Sad violins.
I considered selling it, as buying and selling cameras on the used market is a great way of saving some cash, but I’d get so little for it it that it didn’t seem worth it. Then I had a different idea to give this old workhorse a new lease on life: Convert it to shoot images in infrared.
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Converting a camera to shoot infrared means the sensor is altered to be sensitive only to infrared light. Though it’s technically possible to do this yourself if you’re especially good with electronics, I opted to use a service in the UK called Pro Tech Photographic. For £320 (around $400 or AU$625), Pro Tech converted my obsolete full-frame 6D to shoot 720nm infrared. In the US, Kolari Vision offers a similar service. Its reviews are good, but I haven’t used the company myself.
Infrared light is invisible to the naked human eye, but through the camera it can result in some weird and wonderful effects. Most notably any green grass or foliage will look especially bright — almost white — as the chlorophyll in greenery reflects a lot of infrared light back to the camera. Typically, you’ll see two types of infrared photography. The first is called false color (seen above), where the raw infrared file is processed in Photoshop using channels to create a color image with dramatic blue skies and often white foliage. It’s a surreal look, and some of my false color images look OK.
But the real joy for me is in taking black-and-white infrared images. Infrared photography seems to work best under harsh sunlight — often in the middle of the day when the Sun is casting strong shadows. These are conditions that photographers typically avoid, especially for landscapes, but infrared thrives here, delivering contrasty images with blue skies that become almost black, emphasizing any fluffy clouds in the sky.
Converting these shots to black and white creates dramatic images with punchy contrast that I absolutely love. I took the camera on a trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland and I’m so pleased with the landscape shots I got (seen throughout this article and in my YouTube video seen above), preferring them over the color versions I took on my much more expensive Canon R5.
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And sure, I can convert those color images to regular black and white, but they won’t look the same as black-and-white images taken in infrared and will lack the ethereal look that IR can achieve.
Strictly speaking, it is possible to achieve the same effect using infrared filters that attach to the front of your lens. However, these work by blocking all light except infrared, meaning very little light is allowed through the lens. As a result, you need to use long exposures — often several seconds — to get enough light for a good photo. That means you’ll also need to use a tripod, or any movement from your hands shaking will make the image blurry.
I loved one of my shots enough to have it printed and mounted on my home studio wall. If you’ve never tried it but are into your black-and-white imagery, I definitely recommend considering a conversion. It’s not super cheap — the conversion actually cost more than it would cost to buy a 6D on the used market — but it’s a great way of putting that otherwise obsolete camera to new use and enjoying the creative thrill of taking photos in a brand new way.
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