What passive night camera, 1s exposures max

[shouldbworking]

For a bit of a niche project - think wildlife camera but it can't use ir, I'm trying to pick a camera with the following characteristics, but I don't know the market so I'm hoping someone here may have some ideas

Night and day photography
Passive - no ir torches for the night stuff
As good quality night imagery as I can get for less than a grand (if I need to spend more, say)
I want to take light ish videos in the dark, but I realise that might be impossible so let's say less than a second to take a decent image at night, and I'll analyse the frames
Battery runtime of at least 10 hours
Relatively light / compact

Help appreciated

[Simpo Two]

Why is 1s the limit? To take photos at night you may need longer than that. Cranking the ISO up too far will spoil the image.

[TheRainMaker]

Sony A7s possibly (second hand gen 1), but you won’t get 10 hours out of it, 40 mins of video ish.

https://youtu.be/a1W-bPyYR0k

[shouldbworking]

Simpo Two said:

Why is 1s the limit? To take photos at night you may need longer than that. Cranking the ISO up too far will spoil the image.

This comes back to the wildlife camera type bit - I don't want to miss anything, longer than a second and i might.

Imagine a wyze security cam that worked without active IR - that's the sort of magic I'm after - https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-cam-pro?related...

[Simpo Two]

shouldbworking said:

This comes back to the wildlife camera type bit - I don't want to miss anything, longer than a second and i might.

I'm confused. Are we talking stills or video?

A 1s exposure won't freeze movement. How will you miss something if the exposure is longer?

[shouldbworking]

Simpo Two said:

shouldbworking said:

This comes back to the wildlife camera type bit - I don't want to miss anything, longer than a second and i might.

I'm confused. Are we talking stills or video?

A 1s exposure won't freeze movement. How will you miss something if the exposure is longer?

This comes backs to my assumptions -

I'm assuming that in full darkness - by that, I mean full out in the boonies no light pollution darkness, that no camera will be able to take night video to a reasonable imagery level. That assumption means I've thought well it's going to need to be able to do at least some form of long exposure, even if that's a second - might be a blurry second for sure, but it has a better chance of getting a reasonable image.

Do you think there's a potential for video without lighting in full darkness?

[Harpoon]

Is it the glow from normal IR LEDs that give a camera away and are thus the problem?

If so, there are some trail cams that have no glow eg

https://shop.naturespy.org/collections/camera-trap...

https://naturespy.org/help-articles_item/trail-cam...

[Simpo Two]

shouldbworking said:

This comes backs to my assumptions -

I'm assuming that in full darkness - by that, I mean full out in the boonies no light pollution darkness, that no camera will be able to take night video to a reasonable imagery level. That assumption means I've thought well it's going to need to be able to do at least some form of long exposure, even if that's a second - might be a blurry second for sure, but it has a better chance of getting a reasonable image.

Do you think there's a potential for video without lighting in full darkness?

If you're ruling out IR, then I don't see how you can get any image in complete darkness. Photography is about capturing light, and you don't have any. Even a 10 minute exposure would get you a black frame (apart from maybe digital noise from the sensor) because there's no light.

[BrokenSkunk]

Perhaps it would help if you told us what you are actually trying to take a photo or video of.

But until then take a look at the Panasonic GH5s. The S is important, it is a lower resolution, low light version of the GH5. In low light I believe it out performs the newly released GH6.
The GH cameras are targeted at video and are able to shoot more clips longer than 30 something minutes. Aparently EU legislation placed a limit on the maximum length of a video clip that a stills camera can capture.

Anyone know if it's still in force?

The GH cameras are video cameras that do stills, rather than the other way round.

You will also need to think carfully about which lens to marry the camera with. For low light you want a large aperture, but that means a shallow depth of field (assuming you're not focussed on infinity). Panasonic's auto focus may struggle in extremely low light.

The GH5S is not cheap, but you should be able to get a used one and a decent lens from MPB for around a grand. The 20mm pancake @ f.17 is superb in low light and fairly cheap. But as I said, consider distance to your subject and depth of field.

[shouldbworking]

BrokenSkunk said:

Perhaps it would help if you told us what you are actually trying to take a photo or video of.

Yep, lets try that.

I'm trying to capture soldiers trying to sneak up on you.

If you were in a fixed installation where it was no secret where you were, no drama just slap some massive floodlights, or IR floodlights, and bobs your uncle.

If you're trying to be sneaky, and noone knows where you are and you don't want to give that away, an IR torch blazing into the darkness will give away your position to anyone wearing night vision equipment.

Thus, passive IR.

I'm looking for something that'd be able to resolve a person - not identify, just say - thats a person shape, at about 30 metres range, in a situation where there's minimal light - so lets say, cloudy night, under tree cover.

Thoughts?

[Simpo Two]

Night vision goggles or heat (IR) would be the way IMHO. Think of all those Plod vs Scrote programmes where the helicopter picks up the baddies as white blobs running off across the fields...

Or set up tripwires and flares

[Caddyshack]

shouldbworking said:

BrokenSkunk said:

Perhaps it would help if you told us what you are actually trying to take a photo or video of.

Yep, lets try that.

I'm trying to capture soldiers trying to sneak up on you.

If you were in a fixed installation where it was no secret where you were, no drama just slap some massive floodlights, or IR floodlights, and bobs your uncle.

If you're trying to be sneaky, and noone knows where you are and you don't want to give that away, an IR torch blazing into the darkness will give away your position to anyone wearing night vision equipment.

Thus, passive IR.

I'm looking for something that'd be able to resolve a person - not identify, just say - thats a person shape, at about 30 metres range, in a situation where there's minimal light - so lets say, cloudy night, under tree cover.

Thoughts?

Anyone wearing night vision or with thermal are going to see the soldiers whether they have an ir torch on or not though….my thermal spotter can see a rat in a field with no probs at all. A hiding soldier would glow like a fireplace.

Plus, why would the military be worried about £1k budget?



Can you tell us more about why you want to this?

[QJumper]

Night-time paintball?

[Caddyshack]

QJumper said:

Night-time paintball?

People at Airsoft games turn up with £5k night vision goggles and thermal scopes these days, I suspect paintball will be the same.

[shouldbworking]

Caddyshack said:

Anyone wearing night vision or with thermal are going to see the soldiers whether they have an ir torch on or not though….my thermal spotter can see a rat in a field with no probs at all. A hiding soldier would glow like a fireplace.

Plus, why would the military be worried about £1k budget?

Can you tell us more about why you want to this?

Thermal afaik means cooling at the sensor which means very limited battery life.

Night vision goggles are either active ir or not up to seeing particularly far in very low light conditions. Good in moonlight, not so good with cloud cover under trees

[Caddyshack]

My hand held thermal spotter runs for about 6 hours on a charge, it has a stand by mode that allows you to save battery. I can plug in a normal phone charger whilst using it for much more battery life and if in a vehicle with the engine running or my elec car with no noise I have relative infinite power.

I don’t really know what you are trying to achieve or to what end…you have alluded to swing soldiers but soldiers will use thermal to scan an area when they are looking for someone or on stag - they will be equipped.

Many modern mod night vision does not need a lot of self generated ir as they now have drones and planes and I think they were looking at satellites to splash a battle field with IR.


I do not think we are getting the full story of what problem you are trying to solve.

[BrokenSkunk]

shouldbworking said:

Thoughts?

I think you sond like a Walt ! (No offence intended, I have some odd hobies too.)
I also think you need something head or helmet mounted.
A mirrorless camera like the GH5S I suggested will be too cumbersome to keep putting to your eye and scanning around with. Plus, you may miss your subject due to focus and depth of field.
The GH5S does have a back screen, but using it would emit light. I think the GH5S is probably about as good as you'll get for a low light video/stills camera in your budget.

Thermal is the way to go, passive IR probably isn't going to cut it. Cameras do exist that will work in the light levels you're talking about, but not for your budget. And not exactly what you might consider pocket sized.

[shouldbworking]

Revisiting this again. Can anyone suggest a decent runtime compact thermal camera then?

Appreciate people think I should like a walt. I'm not, I know more than most about the capabilities and availability of the kit that is regularly in the hands of UK soldiers.

[Caddyshack]

shouldbworking said:

Revisiting this again. Can anyone suggest a decent runtime compact thermal camera then?

Appreciate people think I should like a walt. I'm not, I know more than most about the capabilities and availability of the kit that is regularly in the hands of UK soldiers.

So, are you looking to supply soldiers? Why would a soldier need it compared to what they have?


HIK micro is a brilliant thermal camera, I would go for the biggest size (mm) that you can afford. I have the 19mm and you could spot a soldier moving at about 1km away very easily. I can see blood dripping from a rat at 30m when I shoot one.


I think current gen stuff the soldiers have is a hybrid of thermal and night vision as we are now getting gryphon which combines the two. A £3k hunting scope on thermal is amazing.

[shouldbworking]

Caddyshack said:

shouldbworking said:

Revisiting this again. Can anyone suggest a decent runtime compact thermal camera then?

Appreciate people think I should like a walt. I'm not, I know more than most about the capabilities and availability of the kit that is regularly in the hands of UK soldiers.

So, are you looking to supply soldiers? Why would a soldier need it compared to what they have?


HIK micro is a brilliant thermal camera, I would go for the biggest size (mm) that you can afford. I have the 19mm and you could spot a soldier moving at about 1km away very easily. I can see blood dripping from a rat at 30m when I shoot one.


I think current gen stuff the soldiers have is a hybrid of thermal and night vision as we are now getting gryphon which combines the two. A £3k hunting scope on thermal is amazing.

Thanks, that's a useful steer. The gryphon looks a world apart from the current kit in use.

I'm envisaging using something like this to reduce the effort in sentry duty and make it more reliable by having AI detect + classify motion. Make it one operator watching an input feed annotated by a consistently alert AI, with alerting options. Compare that to traditional approaches and hopefully you get a flavour of what I'm going for.

Existing night vision kit either doesn't work in full darkness, and the thermal option eats batteries like you wouldn't believe. Neither option were intended for integration with AI imagine interpretation either - not a show stopper but may as well demo it with current tech.