Thread: Night Vision Video?

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How do you guys capture night vision video?

I have a fancy DSLR, but i understand that a simple IR LED cluster won't work because of some internal filters.

I'm looking for an inexpensive option.

Any ideas?

Most cameras and webcams have an IR filter. It is possible to disassemble some webcams and remove the IR filter - then you could use one of those LED IR lamps to illuminate a scene. I've taken the IR filter out of a webcam for a different project called FreeTrack that uses IR LEDs on a cap to tack head movement for flight sims and other games. It just depends on how handy you are and whether a webcam will meet your needs. If you search their forums, you can see which models others have used.

Some good references on that site, thank you! I may just pick up a webcam since they're cheap enough.

To confirm, a bunch of those guys put a floppy disk over the lens to block out the visible light. Is that only needed by FreeTrack's movement tracking software?

I mean - in our case where we want to film a haunt in "night vision" style, and I use an IR LED cluster as my light source, would I need the floppy disk cover?

Short answer is no, don't use the floppy for video. The floppy blocks visible light so that all the camera sees is the IR LEDs (three bright points) - I was surprised, too, but it works. I haven't tried using it to get an image of something illuminated by the LEDs, but I expect the image would be pretty dim except for where IR was intense and reflected well.

Also, I've had worse luck with Microsoft cams than Logitech. I recommend getting the cheapest one you can that you think will work to see if you like it before trying it with a more expensive one. The guys using FreeTrack are generally using low resolutions; I don't know if the HD cams are as easy to mod.

Just doing a Google search of some of the HD cams requires desoldering and re-soldering. That's a little more time than I'd like to spend. Since my end goal is a video of my haunt to go on YouTube/Facebook, I suspect I don't need HD. But I'm not sure which older webcam is the better one to get. I do want some sort of decent quality video

Then I'm afraid you're down to trial and error unless you can find a tutorial for a specific cam. Of course, if you find a good one and figure out how to mod it on your own, you should post your own tutorial here or the FreeTrack forums. Good luck and show us if you get any good video.

I think a little more research on some of the older ~$30 cams, and I may be in business. Seems like there's quite a few tutorials on Google when you search "<name of camera here> remove ir filter".

I'll be sure to post a followup.

Thank you again for getting me in an inexpensive direction

I was able to get a newer Logitech HD camera to work (and no instructions existed on Google), so I was flying blind.

I think I got it, except the images have a purple tint. I understand it's the sensor and how it picks up the IR, but any thoughts on how to correct that? Especially since I'll be doing video? I think purple video would look weird

Thinking this over again, suppose I could just convert the video to black and white? Wonder if windows movie maker supports that

Yup, that's pretty purple! Did you shoot those in the dark with IR light only? They look pretty good.

I expect that Windows Movie Maker should have the ability to convert it to B&W (might be called desaturate - but if you're a photography guy, you already know that)

The webcam software probably has the ability to do it on the fly if you poke around. (hue, tint, something like that) If not B&W, you could shift it to green for that classic night vision look.