Night vision equipment

Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military grade
night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy than current
DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the difference?
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Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

Alfred Molon wrote:
Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military
grade night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy
than current DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the
difference?

Or perhaps they work on a different principle.

D

In article , David Hare-Scott says...
Or perhaps they work on a different principle.

Indeed - just read the wikipedia article. I'm just a bit surprised that
vacuum tubes are still used for this purpose, now that they've been
replaced by solid state devices in most other applications.
What (equivalent) ISO sensitivity does night vision equipment have? 1
million?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013, Alfred Molon wrote:

Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military grade
night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy than current
DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the difference?

I haven't a clue, but you do realize that night vision scopes are old?

I remember reading about them in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics in
the sixties, when the magazines were still their smaller size.

I can't remember what was involved back then, but you could even buy the
needed tubes on the surplus market.

So either they are still analog, or they've moved to something digital,
but the concept doesn't have to be digital.

Michael

"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Alfred Molon wrote:
Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military
grade night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy
than current DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the
difference?
Or perhaps they work on a different principle.

D

The electron magnification tubes might have a slight persistence delay, but
to get high iso, long integration times are used in sensors, as well as
thermoelectric cooling. I notice delays when viewing my old Sony night
vision camcorder.
Cameras don't slow own sweep rates for integration times. I think they just
average frames.

Bigger pixels are a good thing.

Greg

gregz wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Alfred Molon wrote:
Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military
grade night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy
than current DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the
difference?
Or perhaps they work on a different principle.

D

The electron magnification tubes might have a slight persistence delay, but
to get high iso, long integration times are used in sensors, as well as
thermoelectric cooling. I notice delays when viewing my old Sony night
vision camcorder.
Cameras don't slow own sweep rates for integration times. I think they just
average frames.

Bigger pixels are a good thing.

Greg

Back in the 80's, I was reading what amateur astronomers were doing to
their homemade circuits for taking pictures through telescopes. A lot of
home brew.
Cold sensors were a must.

Greg

In article ,
Alfred Molon wrote:

Just curious: I would imagine that these units contain monochrome
sensors with large pixels and due to the high-ISO race of the past
years, current DSLR sensors shouldn't be noisier. Or does military grade
night vision equipment contain sensors which are less noisy than current
DSLR sensors?
Or is perhaps the image processing software which makes the difference?

They're vacuum tubes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_intensifier

They can be integrated with digital sensors but the amplification
happens by converting light to electrons then bouncing those electrons
down a grid of tiny charged channels to multiply them.
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