Has anyone been brave enough to self mod a Canon eos6d?

[assouptro]

I splashed out on a new camera a couple of months back.

its quite an upgrade from my trusty self modded 450.

I love the image quality and resolution but am totally missing the Ha spectrum and therefore frustrated by the photos I'm getting.

The camera will mainly be used for Astro and I will mod it or get it modded.

I'm very practical and have modded a couple of 450's and resurrected an old hutec modded 350 that had shutter failure, but I'm nervous as in Gary Honis's guide he mentioned the one he did wouldn't work and needed to go back to canon for repair!

So I'm seeking reassurance from anyone who has carried out this operation successfully and would welcome any tips.

Thanks in advance for any input.

clear skies 

Bryan

[Adam J]

There are video online of how to mod the 6d, its not as easy as the 450D which is very easy...ill tell you that much. You should be ok if you take your time. I dont speak from direct experience however, its just like anything else you just have to take the plunge and go for it.  What I can tell you is that even a 550D is much harder to mod than the 450D due to the spring loaded sensor.

[StuartJPP]

I did mine. It was a bit nerve-wracking even though I had done a Canon 1100D and a Canon 650D previously. Reason being was that the cost of getting it wrong was much higher than the other two. I only use it for astro work as I use a Canon 5D3 for daytime use.

I followed Gary's guide here and printed off and used the screw sheet:
http://dslrmodifications.com/6Dmod/Canon6Dmod1.html

The note on the last page is quite important, the SD card slot gave me a bit of grief. If the card slot switch is not set correctly the camera thinks the card slot is open and will not turn on. Once that was sorted I could once again breathe.

Another note is that the filter is stuck on the sensor rather well. It took me about 15 minutes of sweating to get the thing off. Definitely much harder than the other two cameras. I replaced the filter with a Baader one that I purchased from Modern Astronomy since I use a lens/refractor.

Other than those things, it was very similar to the other two cameras, just take your time. However if you are looking for a guarantee that you won't go wrong you won't get it from me

 

I wish I could have done a before/after comparison, but with the UK skies as they are, I wasn't going to hang about.

Barnard 33 - Horsehead Nebula by Stuart, on Flickr

[assouptro]

1 hour ago, StuartJPP said:

I did mine. It was a bit nerve-wracking even though I had done a Canon 1100D and a Canon 650D previously. Reason being was that the cost of getting it wrong was much higher than the other two. I only use it for astro work as I use a Canon 5D3 for daytime use.

I followed Gary's guide here and printed off and used the screw sheet:
http://dslrmodifications.com/6Dmod/Canon6Dmod1.html

The note on the last page is quite important, the SD card slot gave me a bit of grief. If the card slot switch is not set correctly the camera thinks the card slot is open and will not turn on. Once that was sorted I could once again breathe.

Another note is that the filter is stuck on the sensor rather well. It took me about 15 minutes of sweating to get the thing off. Definitely much harder than the other two cameras. I replaced the filter with a Baader one that I purchased from Modern Astronomy since I use a lens/refractor.

Other than those things, it was very similar to the other two cameras, just take your time. However if you are looking for a guarantee that you won't go wrong you won't get it from me

 

I wish I could have done a before/after comparison, but with the UK skies as they are, I wasn't going to hang about.

Barnard 33 - Horsehead Nebula by Stuart, on Flickr

Thanks for the wise words and the amazing image! 

Where did you take that? And was it with a lens (l series no doubt, if it was) or a telescope? 

I'm amazed at the colour difference between the ha behind the horse head and the flame, my last image (which was the 450's Swansong) pretty much has the same red colour across the image.

If it was a telescope, was it a triplet?

do you use pixinsight? Or photoshop? 

I think i saw you mentioning you have an Astrotrack on another thread, was that used? 

Sorry for the barrage of questions but you have given me something to aim for, and I would love to have a bit more information as to how you achieved such a stunning photo! 

I've added my best attempt so far at the horse head that was with the self modded 450

One last thing, did you manage to retain the autofocus?

thanks again

Bryan

Edited May 31, 2017 by assouptro
Additional questions

[assouptro]

2 hours ago, Adam J said:

There are video online of how to mod the 6d, its not as easy as the 450D which is very easy...ill tell you that much. You should be ok if you take your time. I dont speak from direct experience however, its just like anything else you just have to take the plunge and go for it.  What I can tell you is that even a 550D is much harder to mod than the 450D due to the spring loaded sensor.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post Adam 

Are you using the 550? How does it compare to a 450? 

Cheers

Bryan 

[StuartJPP]

Should have included more info in the original post (clicking on the image gives more details):

Baader modified Canon 6D @ ISO400
Canon 500mm f/4 L IS @ f/4
Avalon Instruments M-Zero
25x 300 Second lights
Usual darks, flats and bias.

The answer to your questions:

It is a lens, but a big heavy telephoto lens.

The mount was the Avalon M-Zero and this particular image was taken in Fuerteventura but the conditions there are very similar to where I normally image from in Lincolnshire.

I use both PixInsight and PS.

Not sure about retaining auto focus as I haven't really tried it to be honest. Since I replaced the filter and didn't just remove it and everything was returned to the same depth (spring loaded sensor) it should theoretically be the same. Since the 6D has got AF Microadjustment it should be possible to tweak AF if it isn't spot on.

[Adam J]

9 hours ago, assouptro said:

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post Adam 

Are you using the 550? How does it compare to a 450? 

Cheers

Bryan 

Its similar in terms of noise despite running slightly hotter any residual noise feels more manageable though most likely as you are able to apply more noise reduction before losing detail due to the higher resolution and the noise being more consistent across the image.

I cool my camera though and have removed the casing to do this.  

The 6D will be a much better camera uncooled. 

[Gary Honis]

Hi Bryan,

I started doing Full Spectrum 6D modifications for US and Canadian customers in January 2016.  The hardest part of the 6D modification is removing the LPF#1 frontmost filter.  It sometimes breaks and pieces of the filter fall on the imaging sensor.  I now completely all screws from the 6D, so, I don't have a problem with the SD card switch because I push the top of the camera up a little bit.
 
Gary

 

[assouptro]

On 03/06/2017 at 13:43, Gary Honis said:

Hi Bryan,

I started doing Full Spectrum 6D modifications for US and Canadian customers in January 2016.  The hardest part of the 6D modification is removing the LPF#1 frontmost filter.  It sometimes breaks and pieces of the filter fall on the imaging sensor.  I now completely all screws from the 6D, so, I don't have a problem with the SD card switch because I push the top of the camera up a little bit.
 
Gary

 

Hi Gary 

thank you for taking the time to reply to this post, I'm a big fan of your website, it's really informative and I wouldn't have modded any of my cameras without your help! 

I will have a go and hopefully all will go well.

after the mod, I intend to donate some funds to your webpage in the hope you continue the good work and keep sharing your valuable knowledge.

thanks again.

Bryan