Life Pixel Infrared — Local services in Mukilteo

TL;DR: Very unprofessional treatment of a complaining customer from a distant country.

Longer story: In the middle of April 2019 I made a decision to convert my old D5300 to full spectrum. As I didn't want the sensor naked I was looking for a way to protect it. I found Life Pixel's offer and after reading a D5300 DIY tutorial I decided to order a clear filter. After I received it I took the filter and the camera to a camera repair service to perform the conversion based on the tutorial.

After some time I received a phone call from the service saying that the filter does not fit and they have trouble asking Life Pixel for help. I told them to leave the sensor naked and decided to contact Life Pixel on my own. In my email to Life Pixel I attached photos provided to me by my camera repair service and asked for a return of the money (about 225 USD in total for the glass , shipment and customs). I also offered to send back the filter at Life Pixel's cost.

In the returning email I was told in a cheeky way that there is a different tutorial for this filter and the D5300 tutorial does not apply. When I pointed out that in the D5300 DIY tutorial doesn't say that it does not apply to all filters in offer the guy signing himself as Daniel and as the owner, in my opinion, started to make fun of me.

It's their right to refuse the refund and not agreeing with my complaint but trying to make a fool out of a client is in my opinion highly unprofessional. Maybe if I were a US citizen they would treat me differently but since I'm from a distant country they decided to play around with me. Because of that behavior I decide to...

I sent my Sony A7iii camera for Astro modification last April. I received the camera at the beginning of May this year and because of bad weather I couldn't try the camera. After I tried the camera I noticed there are a lot of hot pixels since modification ( red, green, blue, ''wasn't there before the modification'' ) and I mean a lot of them and then, when I did a post processing of the pictures for example in PTGUI or Photoshop the stars have a massive halo around the stars. It looks like the sensor isn't calibrated properly or the replased glass has different thickness and it causes this issue. I sent the camera to Sony repair shop to check what is wrong with it and they found a cut clear glass front of the sensor, sticked with another glass ( UV/IR cut filter ) with some silicone or a plastic glue. The clear glass was cut to fit the sensor into the camera or they do not use the right glass to convert camera sensors. Also there were missing five screws the lost during conversion and didn't replace them. Very unprofesional business!!! I'm not able to reach them by emails I'm sending since found out this issue in a repair shop. Terrible customer servis, if you are asking for camera conversion, they will answare to emails but if you complaint, they do not communicate anymore and it's impossible to reach any communication. All is about money to get from customers...

For years I was amazed by the images photographers were taking with IR cameras and knew it was a matter of time before I had my own. After researching options online, I finally pulled the trigger with Life Pixel on my Nikon D80.

I really appreciated how they tweaked it to maximize the performance with the 18-200 lens I knew I would be leaving on the body. I did a dust test (shoot at the clear sky at f/22) and the sensor was pristine. The 18-200 focuses spot-on and the exposure is almost always within 1/2 a stop -- easy tweaks in post with RAW files make for a perfect exposure.

The only issue I had with the conversion was deciding to have it done right as Spring was about to burst onto the landscape scene and it proved to be Life Pixel's busiest time. It took a few weeks to have it done but it was done right and lesson learned: send it in during the dead of Winter or late Fall if I definitely want it by the first week of Spring.

Since then, I enjoy being able to shoot during the brightest part of the day with my IR converted camera and wowing friends and family with the unique photographs I land using it.

At some point, I'll be getting my D7000 converted to take advantage of the live view and when I do, there is no question that Life Pixel will get...