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Sony A7R B+W conversion

felix5616

Member
I am thinking of converting my Sony A7R to a dedicated B+W camera. Can I expect any focusing problems with any sony FE or 3rd party lenses? Who/What company is recommended for such a conversion?
 
Simply upgrading to A7r2 or r3 and then converting files to BW might be a better way to go. You’d preserve the option of using the BW conversion color sliders, which IMO is an important part of contemporary BW tonal control.

Kirk
 

scho

Well-known member
I am thinking of converting my Sony A7R to a dedicated B+W camera. Can I expect any focusing problems with any sony FE or 3rd party lenses? Who/What company is recommended for such a conversion?
I had my A7r converted to full spectrum monochrome by Monochrome Imaging Services. I'm very pleased with the monochrome A7r with both Sony FE lenses and 3rd party lenses as well. Vivek has also used this company for his monochrome conversions.
 

Skeeter

New member
I am thinking of converting my Sony A7R to a dedicated B+W camera. Can I expect any focusing problems with any sony FE or 3rd party lenses? Who/What company is recommended for such a conversion?
I am the satisfied owner of an A7r modified by Daniel Morrison at MonochromeImaging (MonochromeImaging.com). Daniel knows his stuff and can modify your camera include or exclude IR. It took me some practice to get the optimum exposure and I had to tweak the viewfinder to approximate the grayscale, but in my view the effort was worth it. To get the best out of your monochrome camera you will need some color contrast filters e.g., yellow, green, orange, red, to separate colors that would otherwise map to the same shades of gray, but again the process is not difficult. Also, there is a useful utility called Monochrome2DNG (fastrawviewer.com) that removes the magenta cast that you would otherwise have to dial out in Lightroom. So a quick trip to Monochrome2DNG, then into Lightroom and process as usual.

When all is said and done I think the conversion is worth the effort. Some of my prints from the A7r(m) are better than silver prints I made from 5x7 negatives in the darkroom. True, you give up the color sliders in Lightroom/Photoshop but somehow I prefer the tones from my A7r(m) to prints from my new A7riii processed monochrome in Lightroom.

Sneed
 

JoelM

Well-known member
i have contacted him several times and thats what he said.
Hi,

I'm not sure when you last contacted him, but perhaps send him an email and see what he says. Perhaps he is slowing down his work, but he is just finishing up my conversion. Also, he told me that he has a list of people that want it done. I'll post pics when I get it back and take some test shots.

GL

Joel
 

msadat

Member
as soon as i saw your post, i contacted him

Hi,

I'm not sure when you last contacted him, but perhaps send him an email and see what he says. Perhaps he is slowing down his work, but he is just finishing up my conversion. Also, he told me that he has a list of people that want it done. I'll post pics when I get it back and take some test shots.

GL

Joel
 

Pradeep

Member
At the risk of being immodest, I've become quite skilled with nighttime photography and will be happy to answer any questions about it you might have or share some tips about to optimize the experience as well as the quality of photos taken using long exposures. I have also become generally knowledgeable about infrared photography, too, although I'm still learning about photographing at night using infrared light, because I only started experimenting with this two or three weeks ago and the technical aspects of it are proving to be quite a bit trickier to master than I expected...
I am going to take you up on your offer of help ;)

Jeffrey, I hope you don't mind, I moved the relevant section of your post to this thread. Would appreciate your input here.

Any tips on IR at night? You have used the a7r, and it appears that this one is really prone to the 'bright spot' phenomenon. Any lens combo you would suggest?

Thanks.
 

Audii-Dudii

Active member
I am going to take you up on your offer of help ;)
Sure, but the best way is probably via email instead of corresponding inside of a thread. I'll PM you my direct email address.

Any tips on IR at night? You have used the a7r, and it appears that this one is really prone to the 'bright spot' phenomenon. Any lens combo you would suggest?
Well, actually, the camera I'm using for my IR photography at the moment is a DIY full-spectrum modified Samsung NX500. I used this camera because 1) it was handy and 2) not worth very much these days, but it turns out it works very, very well for IR photography, at least for exposures at base ISO and as long as 45 seconds or so. (Unfortunately, any longer than that and the sensor gets really noisy and amp glow [or something that appears similar to it] starts to appear as well. Oddly, I also have weird artifacts appearing sometimes when I'm using very short exposures and I have no idea why this is so.)

That said, I have used an non-modified A7R for IR photography in the past, when I was just dabbling with IR photography, as well as my Fuji X-Pro1 and X100S, but all of them required long exposures -- the A7R, in particular -- so while my results were interesting and full of potential, the process itself wasn't a lot of fun because it involved a lot of standing around, waiting.

I do have two damaged A7Rs on hand, however, and it appears there is a strong possibility that I can combine them into one working camera. If so, my intention is to convert that camera to full-spectrum operation as well. But for now, I'm afraid I cannot offer you any advice specific advice with regard to using an A7R series camera for IR photography ... sorry!

Unfortunately, one bit of advice I can offer you about nighttime IR photography generally is that not every scene will photograph well. And I'm finding this something that is very difficult to determine in the field, so I often end up discarding many -- if not most, and sometimes even all -- of the photos I take when I start to post-process them. So if this happens to you, don't be surprised or disappointed!

Nailing the optimal exposure is sometimes tricky, too. Because with some light sources, it seems as if there is almost an infinite amount of headroom and you can't blow out the highlights even if you try, whereas with other light sources, the highlights will blow out completely at exposures so short the rest of the scene is barely visible. Although it sucks to compromise your composition, when this happens, about the only option I've found is to hide the offending light source behind something -- a tree, a sign, the edge of a structure, etc. -- which will knock its brightness down to manageable levels and also obscure the brightest part(s) of it.

Really, though, your best approach is probably just to start taking photos and experience some of these issues for yourself, then figure out how to address them. If I can help along the way by sharing my knowledge and experience, I'll be happy to do so!
 
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