D.I.Y. Camera Tricks or How to Make an Infra-red and Ultra-Violet Photo Camera

by the D.I.Y. Conspiracy Kook

To make an infra-red camera head down to OddJob or some other place that sells cheap, battery powered portable digital photo cameras. Buy yourself a cheap one and take it home. Now carefully open up the camera and find the CCD. The CCD (charge-coupled device) is (according to Wikipedia.com): "an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to one or other of its neighbours." Basically it's the part of the digital camera that acts like its film. Photosensitive and imprintable. Now in between the CCD and the lens is a small piece of glass. That is the infrared filter which blocks out infared light. See, CCDs are sensitive to the visible light spectrum as well as the infared spectrum. The infra-red filter is placed between the lens and the CCD in order to block out the infrared light. See, if you take a photo of a room with a digital camera with an infrared filter and a digital camera without an infrared filter you'll notice a difference in colors. The camera with the infra-red filter "sees" colors just like your eye sees them. Using only visible light. The camera without the infrared filter, on the other hand, sees color with both the visible light spectrum AND with the infrared spectrum thus causing weird colours to appear. To create an infrared camera remove this filter and close up your camera. Now you have an infrared camera. You can take pictures with it in the dark by using some sort of infrared light source like a tv remote control or a Palm Pilot with an IrDA port.

Your infrared camera can be very useful to you. Infrared cameras can "see" temperature differences in objects (the hotter an object is the brighter it shows up). Also it is said that hauntings are accompanied with temperature drops and ghosts appear as cold spots in a room. With your new D.I.Y. infrared camera you will be able to see these temperature changes and take photos of them for your own private keepsakes.

D.I.Y. Ultra-Violet Camera

This camera is much easier to make than the D.I.Y. infrared camera. All you need to do is go to some store and buy a "blacklight" light bulb. Blacklight lightbulbs work by blocking out all light frequencies except for those in the Ultra-Violet spectrum. Now what you need to do is break the lightbulb so that you have some flat fragment of the glass that only lets U.V. rays through. Now you can attach it over the lens of your camera or, if you want to do it the hard way, you can place it in between the camera's lens and CCD.

It has been overheard on the Art Bell show that certain "creatures" can only be seen by using UV cameras. I don't know how true this is but it wouldn't hurt to check it out.