Using An Infrared Illuminator For Low Or No Light Video Recording
It is often thought that night vision camcorder capability is only accessible to the military or by having the ability to buy very expensive and high tech equipment. Today, however, the situation is rapidly changing and a number of cameras and camcorders have excellent built in infrared capable vision and no light capabilities.
The current usual and lowest cost method of capturing video or images in the dark is by using infrared illuminators. One current example is the Sony Night Shot camcorder which pioneered this technique over ten years ago.
The recording surface used inside the video cameras is capable of capturing IR light. This enables the unit to capture high quality video at times when there is no light. And on some models, an internal near infrared light source is built into the camcorder to increase the quality of images taken in low light.
For close up work or in low light interiors, this system performs very well. People find, however, that the cameras don’t do as well in extremely low light situations, such as shooting outdoors in the dark. There is a lack of a strong infrared light source to illuminate an outdoor scene using only the somewhat limited internal IR light. But, by adding an add on IR illuminator, excellent night time video can be captured.
External IR lights vary from accessory units you can get from the company who manufactured your camera to very high powered add-ons from OEM sources. The standard add on lights are fairly inexpensive, and more powerful battery powered add on units that will give illumination up to 30 or 40 yards can be found in the two to three hundred dollar price range.
By making use of an external IR light source that is powerful enough, it’s possible to set up a useful night vision video camera without a huge cost outlay. The additional infrared illumination that you use can’t be seen, but you can use the LCD panel on your camera and view in the scene in what will look like near daylight conditions. The use of additional infrared illumination greatly reduces or eliminates the ‘graininess’ you often see with low light photography.
Give this a go yourself in low light situations. You might find that your camera can do a lot more than you thought.
Night Vision Monocular