Do All Dslr Sensors Have A Filter Over The Sensor

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In Oct 2012, astrophotographer Raymond Collecutt of Whangarei, New Zealand shared a new (and risky) idea he was playing around with: converting a standard DSLR into a sharper monochrome camera for photographing infinite.

Afterward removing the drinking glass layer that's covering the sensor of his Canon 1000D ("It pops off slowly with a pocket-size screwdriver," he says), Collecutt started scratching the green layer from the surface of his sensor using a soft point. This layer is the colour filter array (CFA) that helps capture color information. It's a layer that's direct on the surface of the sensor (different the infrared filter, which sits above the sensor).

Here'southward a video showing the layers being scraped off:

Collecutt's initial tests were rough but promising. He didn't remove the color filter layer to the edges of the frame, since in that location were of import little wires at the sides. "I'1000 going to have a meliorate go at cleaning the sensor up," the photographer wrote at the time:

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Despite the rough removal job, resulting photographs captured using the modified sensor showed more sensitivity in the monochrome areas:

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His first tests with photographing the dark heaven were likewise promising:

The same scene photographed with a standard DSLR (left), and a DIY monochrome DSLR (right)

Regarding the advantages of this unsafe hack, Collecutt offers a sunglass analogy, maxim, "It'southward similar taking its sunglasses off. If y'all were to put [a filter] in front of a standard DSLR, just one out of iv pixels would be getting the calorie-free, merely with the bayer filter removed all 4 pixels will be getting the same amount of light."

In the months that have passed since Collecutt's initial tests, other photographers have connected tinkering with their own sensors and building upon Collecutt's idea. The original forum postal service is now 25 pages long.

A photographer named Dave reported that scratching off the layer removes both the color filter layer and the microlens layer higher up it. Losing the microlenses reduces sensitivity, merely removing the filter increases it. He says the optical comeback isn't very big, only there are big gains to be had in IR and UV photography.

Dave also discovered that he could easily scrape off the filter layers using a scraping tool made from the plastic cease of a paintbrush. This removes the filters without dissentious the sensor underneath.

February of this year is when photographer Luis Campos got in on the activeness. He discovered that he could remove the CFA layer by cracking the layer open with a small hypodermic needle, and then scraping off the whole thing slowly using a carved wooden tip:

Campos writes that this DIY monochrome DSLR is "a great tool for the low budget amateur astronomer," and that the removal of the CFA more than makes upwards for the loss of the microlenses. He has been posting some cute astronomy photographs taken with his "Mono Canon" to his Flickr account. You lot can find 2 of them here and here.

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If y'all'd rather not put your camera at risk with this crazy DIY hack, yous tin beat out some serious cash for a Leica G Monochrom, the new commercial camera that comes without the color filter assortment.

Want a more in-depth look at how this hack is washed and how it was adult? You tin read through the 25 pages of "enquiry" done then far by the members of the Stargazers Lounge forum. It'due south interesting seeing how things accept progressed from Collecutt's initial discovery to Campos' completed hack.

Image credits: Photographs by Raymond Collecutt and used with permission