Thoughts on a Life Pixel UV conversion?

[David H. Hartman]

I'm thinking about converting my Nikon D300s to UV. I'm wondering about Life Pixel? The price is $450.00 which I guess is US dollars.

The D300s offers easy one button LV for tripod use and if I understand correctly one might shoot hand held if there's enough UV for a hand held exposure. I might also be interested in IR.

I know little from direct experience though I read and enjoy UV and IR photographs.

Thanks,

Dave

I tried a search and I'm not impressed with my search skills as I think I should have found many link on this subject. I'm on a smart phone at this time.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Dave, visit our sister site (run by Andrea & Bjørn) at http://ultravioletphotography.com and read up on cameras for UV.

I personally would hesitate paying for such a conversion of a D300s.

[David H. Hartman]

Thank you. I'll check out that link.

Dave

[dslater]

Dave, visit our sister site (run by Andrea & Bjørn) at http://ultravioletphotography.com and read up on cameras for UV.

I personally would hesitate paying for such a conversion of a D300s.

So after much looking at the site, all I could find is Andrea's statement that the D300 lacks dynamic range and high ISO capability. Is this why you would hesitate to pay for a D300 conversion?

[Bill De Jager]

I had Life Pixel do a UV conversion of a Canon 600D (3Ti).  It worked, but there is either some influence of visible light, or else UV in the range 380-400 nm which is generally blocked by the customary Baader Venus (UV) filter.  Thus, the results don't match up with UV results from a broadband camera with that filter and they may not even be good UV results. Discussion here: http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/1225-seen-on-ebay-thread-includes-some-lens-tests/page__hl__%20canon%20%203ti__st__40. I have not experimented much with this camera since then.

[David H. Hartman]

Thank you for all the replies. I'm reading the UV photography site. I have a few lenses that are on the list of conventional lenses that transmit 50% or so at ~365nm or ~370nm. I don't have any true or designed for the purpose UV lenses. I'll keep reading. Maybe a full spectrum camera would make more sense. Then I could us it for IR as well as UV. My experience with UV is slight really nothing. A few rolls of Kodak UV film. It's something I've been interested in forever but never got into.

Thank You!

Dave

[Bjørn Rørslett]

So after much looking at the site, all I could find is Andrea's statement that the D300 lacks dynamic range and high ISO capability. Is this why you would hesitate to pay for a D300 conversion?

Yes, basically. UV is very demanding on the sensor quality and noise performance. Get a cheap D3xxx or D5xxx or even a D7xxx and have that converted instead.

If you want to "recycle" the D300s, I'm sure it could make a nice IR-only camera.

[David H. Hartman]

That's something to consider. I do like classic B&W IR.

Dave