Dan_Llewellyn

To see UV monochrome? I think I am the only guy in the world who knows how and can do it. I don't recommend that people try modding cameras on their own. Aside from the possibility of breaking something, you need special tools and equipment to do it right. The glass going over the sensor has to be really, really clean else you end up with dust spots because the glass is very close to sensor. You can't use wipes or clean room swabs because those leave tiny particles as well. Very small particles get glued to the glass by electrostatic forces. With manual cleaning, you will just end up pushing the particles around. For our final cleaning step, we built a machine that burns off a thin layer of glass to get the glass clean to an atomic level - at least for a few seconds. There are various shops that offer to do camera conversions, but you want to do your homework because there are some guys doing these on their kitchen tables using the wrong dimensioned glass which screws up the focal plane.

We are pretty much the top shop in the world - IMHO.

Looking at skin in UV shows damage before it is visible in normal light. So, for example, forensics uses it to see skin bruises that aren't visible in normal light. Sun damaged skin will show up in UV before you can see it. Using sunscreen is a good idea - even though I enjoy a bit of sun anyhow.

I convert many different cameras each week. This was one of my regular conversions, but the customer is a British/American artist who is an interesting guy. He asked me to make him a UV-Only monochrome camera, and he came up with the idea for the video.

Learning how to do some of these conversions has taken over a decade and lots of R&D into how to deconstruct an integrated circuit. It has taken lots of money and lots of killed sensors to figure it out.

And to convert to monochrome, you have to remove epoxied coverglass off the sensor, and then remove about 5 microns of the CFA and microlenses off the surface of the sensor in a precise, even way. For comparison, typical human hair is 45 microns. The CFA and microlenses are photolithography printed on the surface of the sensor. It's not like you can just peel the layers off. If touch the surface of the sensor with about anything, it will leave a mark.

Most consumer camera lenses are made of BK7 glass (its a type of glass) which is transparent until about 360nm. So a consumer lens can see some UV. Below that, you need something like a Jenoptik APO lens which runs about $5,000.