I was doing some research on infrared cameras to try and find one that would do what I wanted - either a digital camera with at least Kodak DC4800 capabilties or a film camera that accepted my EF lenses. Preferably a 10D equivilant* with at least near-IR capabilities - like that will happen.
I discovered that only the cameras over 5 years old may still retain some form of IR capability, except for the really really expensive ones. The only digital exception appears to be the Sony F717 series.
All newer film cameras such as what was my first choice, Elan 7e, apparently have a little IR diode which does nifty things for regular film users, but has a tendancy to fog the IR film at least in part.
If I spend realatively 4 times as much money (EOS 1v) I can get one that does not fog the IR film (maybe).
The Digital cameras today are specifically rigged to prevent IR photography and film cameras are starting to use nifty IR film fogging technologies.
All this leads to me finally figuring out why the local camera store did not have any IR filters in stock and usually did not keep any or plan to. Which really surprised me since when I was a kid, I always liked playing with IR, since it allowed me to take images of things in a way I normally could not see them.
Me I just want to play with it for artistic purposes.
Guess I need to see if I can get an IR filter and film for my really old film cameras (Canon AV-1 (I hate this camera) or Hassleblad 500 ELM (a collector's item**). That or just buy the Sony F717 (which does not have interchangeable lenses). Arrrggghhh!!!
IR is fun and would be a nice marketing tool, just make the IR filter easily changeable. Maybe the price for IR-only cameras will come down in a few years, but I doubt it will come down as fast as visible spectrum cameras did.
Trivia:
*Yes I know it is theoretically possible to remove the IR filter and permantly make it an IR camera.
** literally - it is serial #0002 of the series and was supposed to be presented to Neil Armstrong (plaque on side says so), but the story goes he did not care about it, so the Hassleblad engineer sold/gave it to an avid Hassleblad collector who in turn sold it (when he had financial problems) a few years later to my dad, who in turn sold it to me. I have done the best research available to prove the story (including resposes from hassleblad and an expert they recommended), but no absolute proof as it had been too long for first hand accounts. The only true proof is that the plaque includes appropriate marks indicating a presentation camera.
