Converting Nikon DSLR cameras to "mirrorless"

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sat Mar 25, 2017 8:01 pm

I love my vibration-free mirrorless MFT cameras for micro photography, especiallly when used in high-resolution mode. But this mode requires absolute stillness. Environmental vibrations ruin it, and flash does not fix that, even in principle. So when environmental vibrations are severe, I miss my bigger-sensor cameras. But those mirrors flapping around shake my specimens in liquid. It isn't terrible, but I'd like to avoid that.

So I taped my mirror in the "up" position with black electric tape. I use Live View to focus, and everything seems to work fine. I still have the darn shutter moving around, but I don't think it vibrates my specimens like the mirror does. I use delayed firing, long shutter speed, and second curtain flash. Seems to work alright.

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:50 am

We used to do that in the old days.
There was still movement in the camera.

Some use/d a motor rotation to wind a thin cord, to pull the mirror up, against a spring.
If you hold the mirror up, the slack cord will have to go somewhere unintended.

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:49 am

Yes, there is still movement. But much less mass flopping around. A piece of tape is about the right level of sophistication for me, given my lack of mechanical skills and tools.

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 5:03 am

I think I used a blackened piece of fine piano wire, shaped to spring into place. First try was a matchstick..
In the last camera I dismantled where I can remember the cord, the cord rose up above a pulley it should have been held taught against, when you pushed the mirror up.
The risk was that it would miss the pulley when the mirror was let down again. That could jam the mirror.

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:23 am

I don't want to take it apart, I haven't the tools or the nerve....

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:21 am

I'm not suggesting that anyone should dismantle a camera, just pointing out why lifting a mirror with a finger, might cause a problem.

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:30 am

I fired the shutter and when the mirror went up, I held it there and taped it.

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:51 am

That sounds like a sensible approach - hopefully, if there's a cord, and if it WAS wound around something, it still is!