Following from an idea in an early issue of O'Reilly's Make magazine, I converted and old digital camera (FujiFilm FinePix 1300) into a near-infra red camera. This involved disassembling the camera and removing the ir filter in front og the ccd sensor, and replacing it with a visible light, but ir transmissive filter. Removing the ir filter from the ccd allows the near-ir response of the ccd to be used, putting in a visible light filter allows only ir light in to the camera. The best filter I found was well exposed colour negative from the leader of a 35mm film. The first two pictures of Symphony Hall in Birmingham were taken with some b/w exposed film, clearly this lets too much visible light through judging from the colour in the pictures. On the others, light coloured areas are ir reflective, dark areas are absorbant. Green vegetation reflects well and shows up lighter, buildings absorb well so show up darker, this shows clearly in the 3rd pic of Dalton Tower at Aston Uni, again in Birmingham. Clouds reflect well, but blue sky shows dark, this is shown clearly in the 2nd row, 2nd & 3rd pic from Rainsbrook Wood.
I took some pictures of the disassembly procedure. As time permits, I will put them up here with instructions. Click the pictures below to see a larger image. The focus on these seems rather soft, the camera is an auto focus and I assume the mods done interfere with the focussing somehow.