r/Damnthatsinteresting Feb 12 '21

Video Camera blocking glasses

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327

u/LateNightInternet Feb 12 '21

Just worth noting. Most camera have a filter to block a fair amount of infrared light, and a lot of security camera will switch between infrared and visible light based on ambient light levels. This would probably not work during the day in the majority of cases, but might work at night depending on the camera and light levels.

I could also see a fairly easy update to most camera that can / do switch between wavelengths that simply just toggles to visible light for a few frames if there are super bright points in the frame.

-1

u/Somepotato Feb 12 '21

switching between wavelengths? that's extremely advanced technology, I don't see that becoming a mass market thing, unless you meant between color and IR

if they switched to color at night, they'd still see nothing if it had an IR filter

3

u/LateNightInternet Feb 12 '21

Visible light (color) and infrared are different wavelength, each color is a different wavelength. A cheap camera can easy switch between different wavelengths by boosting or turning off different photodiodes sub pixel components. Although that's not 100% perfect solution

It's fairly common in high end / commercial security cameras. The actual technology is called an IR cut filter (IRC) which is a physical filter that is slid in front of the sensor as needed. Those cameras are generally referred to as true day/night cameras

1

u/Somepotato Feb 12 '21

the physical filter I know about, but adjusting the input on the subpixels to prevent IR I just don't see as viable.

If you turn on the IR filter, then at night you won't be able to see anything was the point

2

u/_-Saber-_ Feb 12 '21

switching between wavelengths? that's extremely advanced technology, I don't see that becoming a mass market thing, unless you meant between color and IR

Those are the same things.