Infrared Photography + Canon 7D HD Video?

So we've acquired our first Canon 7D and have been testing it around the house. While I've read a a couple gripes about the Canon 7D (the 1.6 crop, having "too many" megapixels) I can confidently say that we're overall impressed and happy with the purchase. The camera gives us the ability to get a film-quality HD look but at a fraction of the traditional costs since the 7D is an SLR camera. Furthermore, the large light chip allows us to shoot in low lighting situations that originally, with our old Canon A-1, would have required the use of many high powered production lights.

All of these advantages - a higher receptiveness to light, less expensive lenses, and the overall mobility of the camera - are pushing me to think of more ways to shoot video, especially in ways that were not possible (with our budget) to us before.

The first experiment that I will be trying out is exploring the video results when using infrared filters. For a long time, thanks to being the sibling of a photographer, I've been quite aware of the effects of IR filters on still photography. What you get is a almost other-worldly image of brightly lit foliage and against dark skies. And while I've seen similar effects in larger budget movies, I'm itching to find out how easy it would be to create the same effect with our new Canon 7D, an inexpensive filter, and minimal post color-correction - and of course, I'm hoping these midday videos will not just look like inexpensive night vision goggles. Any great post person knows you can achieve amazing color effects solely in post, but at the same time, would the look be more "authentic" if our raw footage already contained this information? And again, while I know anything is possible in post, I'm looking to create this look with minimal-to-no post work involved.

There is a big issue that I'm planning to arise: my shutter speed.

First, many digital camera makers build in a filter that reduces the amount of IR light that can be recorded. I'm guessing this somehow enhances the visual field of light (but again, I'm no camera maker, that's just a guess). Regardless, with this built in IR blocker in most digital cameras the amount of IR light is significantly reduced. I've read that for a couple hundred dollars one can get the IR blocking removed, but I'm not about to tinker with our new toy. Also, this anti-IR effect varies from camera to camera, and I have no idea if this would even be necessary for our Canon 7D. Anyway, back the my main point: keeping in mind that most of the IR light will be blocked by a [very likely] built in feature of the camera combined with the fact that the IR filter will block out other light wavelengths, we're basically working with a tiny amount of light, even on a bright sunny day. With still photography, this isn't a huge issue, because one can lower the shutter speed, and as long as the subject isn't moving, you can get a great shot. But with video, we're very much limited to how slow our shutter speed can go. But again, this is an experiment, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get something great!

Here's a simple video I found on Youtube where it looks like someone is testing our a homemade IR video setup. This person was able to work with the lowered amount of light, so it's definitely possible. And while the image quality is pretty low, but the color effect is still pretty cool.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for our results!