Canon Photomarathon 2018

Canon's annual Photomarathon event continues to show signs of tightening the belt, but I suppose that's fine if the cost-saving measures mean more of the proceeds going to the non-profit organization Operation Smile Philippines.

Incidentally, I think this year's winning shots (grand champion and runner-ups) are more interesting than last year', though still not at the level of the winning entries from 2014 and earlier.

More on infrared conversion

Several months after I stumbled across LifePixel's DIY tutorials, I finally took the plunge and took a shot at full spectrum conversion.

Despite removing the hot mirror of my mirrorless camera (a second-hand EOS M), the required exposure times were significantly longer than what I had anticipated. In my case, a proper exposure at noon required 1/30s at f/2.8, ISO 800. In contrast to that other people online were reporting much shorter exposure times such as 1/125 at f/8, ISO 100; 8 full stops shorter than my own.

It turns out that the dust reduction filter on interchangeable lens systems (i.e. DSLRs and mirrorless) also functions as a secondary IR filter. Thus, I had only removed one out of two filters on the camera.

the hot mirror which was removed

the dust reduction filter which was put back