I went to visit the Raspberry Pi Foundation in Cambridge on Friday. It was really nice to finally meet Liz and the ever-growing team.
We exchanged “black boards”. I gave them samples of some prototypes I’ve been working on, and they gave me one of the new Pi NoIR camera boards with “No IR” filter. I tried it out with John (who’s been working with Gordon on solving the USB issues). It works exactly the same way as the green PiCam. The only difference is that, because there’s no infra-red filter, daytime colours look a bit washed out, but not nearly as much as on my cheap “IP cam” security cameras at home, where the grass looks distinctly grey.
Pi Noir the Raspberry Pi camera without the IR filter
When I got home I shot some photos. I’ve been doing shots of my prototype boards recently, so all the photography gear was already out. Black boards are surprisingly difficult to light well. They photograph as grey really easily if the lighting angle or intensity is wrong. So here is a selection of macro shots of the new Pi NoIR. As you can see, changing the lighting brings out different levels of detail in the shots.
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- Pi NoIR lit from side
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- Pi NoIR lit from above
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- Pi Noir the Raspberry Pi camera without the IR filter
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- Pi NoIR lit from side
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- Pi NoIR underneath
Pwetty. Saw these a couple of weeks ago. Very pwetty indeed
If the Pi-NoIR colors look less washed-out than other IR-sensitive cameras, I have to wonder if that is because the sensor is relatively less sensitive in the IR range. If you are getting a lot of IR into the camera, the color should be very washed out, because the dyes used in Bayer filter dots are all pretty transparent in IR (all the ones I’ve seen anyway).
It may be my rose-tinted Pi-filter in operation. I’ll get some comparison shots so we can have an objective point of view :)
I did a little comparison vid yesterday, but still to edit it.
In the meantime, there’s this…
https://raspi.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/pinoir-thumbnail.jpg
I was hoping they were going to change the “SUNNY” code on the cable for the NOIR.
The name “moony” was already taken and had some undesirable connotations ;) Although “starry” might have been an option.