These were taken with my cheap digital camera, seen below. The lens it came with had an IR-blocking coating on the back; I replaced this with a lens without the coating. I also inserted a piece of exposed 35mm film between the lens and the CCD sensor to cut out the visible light. This probably means my warranty is void.
This is a 2 megapixel still camera, whereas the camera I used previously was a black and white video camera. It can take short videos as well, though only at low resolution with a low frame rate.
The pictures came out with a purple tinge and little other colour. How much of this colour was preserved depended on whether I used Photoshop Element's automatic brightness and contrast adjustment, or did it manually, or converted the picture to black and white. Photoshop has numerous filters which can be used to give freaky effects.
For comparison, the pictures below were taken with my digital SLR at about the same time.
If you're interested in trying this yourself there are a few points you need to be aware of. Firstly, this trick relies on the lens being easily removed. This isn't likely to be a problem for cheap cameras with a fixed lens, although the manufacturer may have applied glue to the thread to keep it in focus. Also, some digital cameras have the IR-blocking filter on the sensor instead of the lens, which will spoil our cunning plan. Finally, don't blame me if you damage your camera!
