Night Vision and Infrared Lights

[George Chronis]

Hello,

I have a shoot of a military simulation game in a couple of weeks. Some of the action is going to be in the dark. These people use night vision goggles to move around. Has anyone tried any kind of infrared light to illuminate a scene and see what they get with the HV20? It should pick it up pretty well, but do you have any experience with any specific lights? I was thinking a surefire with an infrared filter for spot light at a distance and a flood LED infrared light for short distances (these are infrared LED's not white LED's with filters). I'm just not so sure what kind of image I'll get in the HV20. Does Sony use a special sensor/light/processor combination on their cameras? Theoretically, all video camera sensors should be sensitive to infrared light, but I would like to get some comments on the image quality compared to that of the cameras that have this feature built in.

Thanks!

[Barry_Green]

HV20 won't see anything under infrared lighting. You have to use a camera that has the ability to remove the IR-blocking filter. Sony's NightShot cameras let you do that, and Panasonic may have had some models too like the DVC30, etc., but I don't know if they have any HD model that has the ability to also disable the IR filter and shoot nightvision stuff. I think Sony's HC3 can do it.

[George Chronis]

Thanks, Barry. I assumed that since it can see blinking LED's from infrared remotes, it would also see an infrared illuminated scene. Crap. I don't really want to buy another HD camera. I just spent $1500 on the HV20 + accessories. Oh, well. I'll see if I can retrofit one of their night vision scopes on a cheapo lens for the HV20 or stage something in normal lighting and then filter it out in Final Cut.

Thanks again, George.

[AuditoryVisuals]

Are the people using light amplification night vision goggles? Or infrared night vision goggles? If it's infrared, you could have visible spectrum lights, or full spectrum with filters, and then in post you could have make it monochrome green to get the effect. They wouldn't see it if it's not infrared. That depends on whether their goggles will see visible light or not. Maybe they'll have to use filters.

[George Chronis]

They use infrared night vision, not light amplification. Yeah, I can't use visible light, because I'll mess them up. My question is: will the HV20 see infrared illuminated scenes? If do, I'll get some infrared filter for my surefire and it should be ok.