Making a Night-Vision Webcam

Step 6 Test it out

to test it out, look at your remote control while you click it, you should see the IR LED blink. You can use your remote as a flashlight for the camera in the dark. You can buy IR illuminators or make your own out of a bunch of IR LEDs and voila, you can see in the dark.

Try not to use this for anything creepy.

Comments

[bicyclelifestyle]

how many brothers do you have?

[girrrrrrr2]

more than 3 i think...

[pro2xy]

hahahahaha!!!!!

[prokia789]

after i took out my webcam`s r-cut filter the image was blur...but after i took out the objective lens..it became clear..how is this possible??i thought that the webcam needed the lens to help it focus?

[tahlorn]

I followed this, and got it working. Thanks! Only thing is, my image is wobbly. When it moves, it wiggles like I am looking through water, and stabilizes after I stop moving. Any ideas on this?

[cclementi6]

 bad quality webcam? porbably a slow framerate.

[zack247]

i have some bad quality "kids camera" i got from one of my friends. it does the same thing.

[Pasit]

i have tried the look into ur remote before and i can already see it, but it doesnt light anything when im in the dark. any suggestions?? and i have taken my camera apart and i can see that there is a little piece of glass at the VERY back with kinda pinkish purply tint, is this the filter??

[cclementi6]

 it probably is. They usually look clear, but from certain angles, they are red or pink.

[leevonk]

yeah, the pinkish purply thing is probably the filter, that's what mine looked like. even with the filter in you can sometimes see the remote IR LED a little bit, but with the filter out you'll be able to use the remote control's LED as a small flashlight in the dark (have to hold it close to things to illuminate them with the IR).

[Aunry]

do v have to take out the filter and put it back in. wat difference wud it make? :s

[cclementi6]

 you dont have to put it back in.   IR cameras have plenty of uses; you can make a  multi-touch trackpad from one.

[monican82]

its funny my dell web cam doesn't have a Ir filter. right out of the box no filter at all its fairly new

[cclementi6]

some cameras dont have a filter, instead, they have a coating/layer which is sprayed and dried onto the lens itself.  This is normally the case with more expensive webcams 

[jackyl764]

Ok before tearing up one of my logitec webcams, I decided to experiment on one of the way cheap ezonic webcams I had laying around. They're cheap, like $20 for 2 at walmart. They come apart easy no filing or prying required. So, to anyone that wants to do this, it DOES work And I discovered that the Ezonic is very easy to work with. 3 screws, pop the grey face plate off, slide the board out unscrew the lens, pry the IR filter out and put it back together. I had quite a time trying to get the grey face plate back on though....

[Inuchance]

I was worried the IR filter would be buried pretty deeply in tiny parts. Thanks for the guide to help me not tear apart the wrong thing. It's freaky just how much more receptable this webcam is to light now that a clear-looking piece of glass is pulled out, as well as how now many dark-colored fabrics show up as white.

[nevtxjustin]

I have several OKI-USA true day/night cams that I force them into night mode during the day. Background - CCD, CMOS, and even the 20 year old vacuum tube vidicon cams are sensitive to near infrared. The focal point of the longer IR light is further away from visible light and will result in a blurred image; so cameras have a built in IR block filter. A true day/night cam has a retractable infrared blocking filter that extends into the light path during the day (i.e. greater than .1 Lux illumination) and retracts when its dark. In my cams, there is a photo-cell on the outside of the case. If its not a true day/night cam, but says it has night vision, then it means it uses embedded white balance to combine the outputs of all the CCD elements and it in black and white and the gain is usually increased. What I do - I built a lens sleeve assembly that covers the photo-cell and you can actually hear the IR filter retract and the cam goes into black and white mode. I use a 3/4" thin wall PVC (sold as 160 PSI rated) sleeve that fits into the lens cavity from the outside, that in turn slides into a larger collar that holds the sleeve in place. Over the lens sleeve I glued different filters. I have several sample sets of Lee theatrical lighting filters. The deep blue and red have the greatest passe percentage and the bandpass curves don't over lap, but I seem to have better results with two layers of color 35 mm film negatives that I over-exposed in day light and took to Walmart to be developed. Since the output of my cams are standard NTCS format with video coax cable, I have a converter box that send it out over standard ethernet cable into my laptop. Eventually I'll tear into my cams and adjust the backplane focal length to compensate for the longer focal length of IR. They have a vari-focus lens that I can adjust for a 3.5 mm to 8 mm focal length. Next I'll try it with my $1,300 (retail) Toshiba pan/tilt/22x OPTICAL zoom camera that I mounted on the roof of my truck. I have my eye on a new Toshiba that can render full motion COLOR down to .00025 LUX which is in the range of third generation (GEN3) starlight scopes.

[Guittarman10]

that is so sic, i made one out of a crappy camera and it worked soo good. the whole use your remote thing confused me for a while till i figured it out. cool

[jack is back in blak]

that cool my brother does stuff like that

[jack is back in blak]

that cool my brother does stuff like that

[jack is back in blak]

that cool my brother does stuff like that