Dan, you have a good selection of IR samples there. Thanks for sharing.



Rich

OK, I went with the CX12 (Sony HDR-CX12).
Not exactly a Pro camera, but an amazing piece of hardware nevertheless. It had infrared capability and was Flash Memory, and that was pretty much all there was to choose from until high-end manufacturers see the market.

The only thing sofar I really dont like about it is the viewfinder -- there isnt one.
If Im going to be taking infrared shots of wildlife etc. it sort of defeats the purpose to have a bright LCD screen lighting up your face. With a viewfinder I could temporarily give up the night adaptation in one eye, while the non-viewfinder eye remained dark-adapted.

My solution to that will be several layers of red gel over the LCD screen to knock the brightness down, but it's not as effective as shielding the light from my subjects with my eye socket (or that convenient to have to deal with gels and black tape).

The other solution is to turn off the LCD illumination, which the CX12 thoughtfully gives you the option to do.

Now to find an editor that will handle AVCHD. ...but that's another topic.

CX7 and Infrared
 

Jeb - I've posted some pictures of my CX7-spotlight combo (go to the link below and hit the "Infrared ..." link. It looks ugly, but its serviceable. Good luck with the CX12.

Nature and Wildlife Filmmaking Tips and Tricks

Jeb -
There's a new hoodman eye loupe designed for these small LCD screens - it velcros over the panel, might be a good option.

If you want to see what it looks like, search the forums here - Chris posted some pix of the new Canon HF-S100, with the hoodman eyepiece mounted - I would expect it to fit the CX12 as well.

I picked up a Sima SL-20IR infrared illuminator (36 LEDs) at Buy.com for about $40, which is $20 less than what Best Buy wanted for the smaller 9 LED model.
First tests were impressive, it came with a bracket, and you can stack multiple illuminators together. That's good, because the built-in IR source on the CX12 seems to be a single LED and a lot fainter than a previous nightshot camera I own.

Ill have to look for that, sounds like a good idea. Thanks.