Poor Man's Cell Phone IR Filter

IR photography is fun. However, getting a proper IR filter (technically a visible light filter but whatever) for your camera can be a pain, especially if you only have a point and shoot, or in my case, a cell phone. Sticking true to my "Poor Man's" philosophy of using only things I have around the house to make this, all that is required are 4 things:

*A cell phone (obviously with a camera on it)

*A case that fits snugly on said cell phone

*A floppy disk

*A pair of scissors


--Disclaimer/Warning--

IR photography requires an immense amount of sunlight (or IR lights) to properly expose shots. That being said, do not look into the sun, with or without the filter on your phone.

*This isn't technically a true IR filter. However, for the price it does the job well enough. 

Step 1: Camera Check

The first and most important step of this is to check that your camera does not have a good IR Blocking filter in it. Most cameras do, but they are cheap and only meant to filter out IR from visible light pictures. Some cameras have very good ones, which block nearly all IR light, and this filter won't do anything if yours is one of those.

So how do you know if your camera has a blocking filter? Turn the camera on, get a remote control of some kind (TV/DVR/etc etc...), point the end of the remote with the IR LEDs in it (the end you point towards whatever you are trying to control/the end that has little LED bulbs on it) towards the camera lens, and press buttons. You should see them light up (probably purple). If you don't see anything, make sure the remote isn't dead and that you are pressing a button. If you still don't see anything, then you have a good camera and unfortunately the only way to continue is to take it apart. If you do see them light up, congrats! You have a camera capable of taking IR pictures.

Comments

[arpruss]

Another filter option is if you have some developed negatives. The darkest areas (say, near the ends where it may have been exposed directly to daylight during loading) are said to make usable IR-pass filters.

[damascenoalisson]

Yes, it works fine. In my cell phone I can't see anything except the sun, but with my camera the photos are ok.

[gtoal]

I can't be alone in being totally confused when I first saw the title of this post. On reading I then understood that you meant a filter that allowed only IR through and blocked visible light. May I suggest renaming the 'ible to something like "How to take IR photos with cell phone camera" or "Easy IR mod to cell phone camera"..?

regards

G

[jeffconnelly]

For a lot of phones (mine works perfectly) the battery cover covers the entire back of the phone, so the "filter" can be put on without a case, held over the camera by the pressure of the backplate.

[elmotactics]

Yea mine does too, however there are phones like my old one (Droid 2) where the battery cover only covers the battery, so I figured I'd cover everyone.