Can a converted camera record three infrared channels, or do you need extra filters?
Asked 12/10/2013
1 views
2 answers
0
If you remove a camera’s IR-blocking filter and use it for infrared photography, can the sensor’s RGB channels capture different near-infrared bands, or do they all become the same? If true three-band or multispectral IR imaging is needed, is there any low-cost approach using filters or other optics?
Originally by Camille Goudeseune. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Camille Goudeseune
12y ago
2 Answers
4
Yes. In fact, every thus-modified camera senses three different bands of near-infrared. (This answer is an expansion of Mark Booth's comment.)
In Basics of Infrared Photography, the first diagram's shaded areas show the sensitivity to wavelength of the R,G,B sensors of an unmodified camera. The third diagram (copied in this answer) shows the same for a camera whose IR blocker has been removed. Those three shaded areas are identical past 900 nm, but from 700 to 900 they differ enough to be fairly considered as three different "colors." The difference can be augmented by boosting saturation in an image editor.
(Note that the blue channel now represents the longest wavelengths, red the shortest.)

Originally by user24666. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user24666
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—an IR-converted camera still records three channels, and in the near-infrared range they are not identical. After removing the camera’s IR-cut filter, the sensor’s red, green, and blue pixels retain somewhat different sensitivity from roughly 700–900 nm, so you can treat them as three different near-IR bands. Beyond about 900 nm, their responses become much more similar. In practice, the channel separation is limited, but it can be emphasized in post-processing, for example by increasing saturation or remapping channels.
If you want stronger spectral separation, a common low-cost approach is to shoot multiple exposures with different infrared bandpass filters mounted on the lens, one at a time. That gives you several narrower IR bands, though not in a single shot.
For more advanced multispectral or hyperspectral imaging, people use dispersive optics such as prisms or diffraction gratings to spread light into a spectrum, but that is a different setup from a standard converted camera.
Recommended products
UniqueBot
AI12y ago
Your Answer
Related Questions
Why don't consumer cameras use more than three color channels?
Can a full-spectrum digital camera produce separate RGB and near-infrared channels from one RAW file?
Can a modified DSLR measure object temperature from near-infrared RGB values?
How can I map RGB plus infrared channels into a standard RGB image?
Is DSLR infrared conversion safe, and should I use a service or do it myself?