Night Vision

[Rodrigo Prieto]

I am in pre-production for a film thar requires a night exterior scene in a desert with no light source. I am curious about Night Vision and Image-intensifier technologies. Does anyone have experience with this? Is it possible to use it on a film camera, or only on Digital?

[Laurent Andrieux]

There is an infrared stock at kodak. You should check on their site. It would be sensitive to heat only giving sort of a monochromatic image I guess, since I never used it nor seen anything shot with it. You could also use infrared sources with it.

[Rodrigo Prieto]

There is an infrared stock at kodak. You should check on their site. It would be sensitive to heat only giving sort of a monochromatic image I guess, since I never used it nor seen anything shot with it. You could also use infrared sources with it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I used Color Infrared stock on Alexander (at the end of the India battle scene), but it was not good for night shooting. It was sensitive to infrared light, but not to heat, and did not work in low light situations. It is designed for aereal photography (agricultural, military, and scientific applications). I am looking for something that will allow me to shoot with almost no light. Maybe I will just have to light the scene, but it is hard to meke "moonlight" look real in a big desert exterior.

[Laurent Andrieux]

Sir,

 

It may sound ridiculous, but I almost collapsed when I realized you are The Mr Prieto !

 

Don't know if other people noticed you gave us the honor to come here, even when you posted last year about telecine.

 

A quick search on this site with your name as the search key would lead you to this :

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...highlite=prieto

 

And if you would post answers into topics that talk about you and your work it would of such a valuable interest for the whole community.

 

Mr David Mullen, ASC and other valuable cinematographers give us a lot of their time too, so if ever it's not too time taking it would be a great honor...

 

Back to your main topic, I know there is an electronic amplifier that works on video cameras (not especially digital) but I've never heard of such a device for film cameras.

[Marcel Zyskind]

Hi

 

I used the infrared mode on a small handycam, on a mountain crossing at night, on a film called In This World a fews back. In one shot, on slow shutter, it picked up the moonlight, when I covered the infrared light on the camera with my finger. It's one of my favorite scenes in the film, despite the golfball size noise. We graded the the scene black and white. I did use the infrared light on the camera as well though.

 

I think some 3ccd cameras now also have the infrared option, which would yield better results for blowing up for 35mm.

 

I've also, many years ago, used military nightvision goggles in front of a dv camera. I can't recall what make it was. It's worth investingating this option. Of course it wil be green, but you can grade this black and white as

well. I suppose it's worth a test to see if you can put this in front of a 35mm prime lens...

 

Good luck, let us know what you figure out

All the best

Marcel

 

BTW We blew it up to 35mm anamorphic print.

Edited March 17, 2005 by MarcelZyskind

[Luke Prendergast]

You may be better off shooting this scene on video. CCDs are quite sensitive to infra-red. You will need to remove the IR cut filter from the camera, and probably provide some low-level lighting, even just an on-camera Sungun or similar, maybe with a deep red gel. Should work with an F900 or Varicam if you can convince the hire company to let you try it.

 

As for image-intensifiers, I suspect you won't find anything outside of a lab of significantly better resolution than SD video.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

When you say "no light", if you mean that literally, then obviously you're in trouble!

 

That said there's various scopes available which will read starlight, and certainly moonlight. The thing is, are you after something that looks like a semi technological, military looking view that actually looks like a real nightvision scope, or are you looking for a way to shoot in extremely low light for some other result?

 

If you're after a realistic military nightvision view, there's various stuff available, including one designed to mount on an XL-1's lens mount. I mention this only because you're going to be shooting an image off the back plate of the intensifier anyway, if it's a tube intensifier, so you may as well shoot it on DV and have an easy-to-handle package and justify the degradation as part of the nighvision effect. Starlight scopes are so insanely noisy anyway that it'll hardly make any odds.

 

On the other hand, if you're trying for some not obviously-technological look... HD video probably has a lower grain to sensitivity ratio, but what do you want to end up with?

 

Phil

[John Sprung]

Is the intention here to do a POV of someone using a night vision scope, or to simulate unaided human vision under extremely low light?

 

Military and police FLIR systems are low resolution, but if it's a POV, that's appropriate.

 

Human night vision is monochrome, and the sensitivity shifts a little more towards blue. Peak sensitivity for color (photopic) vision is 555 nm, but for night (scotopic) vision it's 505 nm. In the transitional (mesopic) region, about 3 - 5 lux, blues seem to get brighter, reds darker, and purples get wierd. That's called the Purkinje shift. So for ordinary seeing, IR would be a step in the wrong direction.

 

BTW, I figured out once that the difference between direct sunlight and the full moon in the same position is 21 3/4 stops.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Rodrigo Prieto]

My intention is not a POV of someone looking through a military or police device. Ideally it should be very scary and realistic, and a grainy or noisy feel would be OK, but not as if seen by a security camera. John Smith, could you explain a bit more about removing the IR cut filter from a CCD camera? Do all video and digital cameras have this filter? Have you done this, and what is the effect? Thanks for all the answers, I am already learning a lot...

[Elhanan Matos]

Taking out the IR filter would mean taking out the Low pass filter as well, because they are both on the same piece of glass. Taking out the low pass filter would just give you an extra blurry image because you would no longer be able to back focus your lens. The proper way to do this would be to set up your camera for low light. So increasing the Gain, lifting your blacks, etc...

 

I did a test with another Cinematography.com forum member, Kevin Zanit, shooting only with available light on some very dark streets last weekend. These streets were all lit with Sodium Vapor lights, which were very hard to correct in camera. I somehow managed to do a decent job at it while sitting in the back of a moving pick up truck.

 

It's pretty amazing how much detail you can get out of the F900 and still have a fairly clean picture.

 

I'll try to post more info and stills from that test later this week.

[David Mullen ASC]

Panavision has some sort of light intensifier / night scope attachment for their 35mm cameras that essentially rephotographs an electronic image onto the film (I think) -- it was used extensively in the (horrible) remake of "Rollerball" for a nighttime chase sequence shot by starlight & moonlight. You should check out the DVD and the article on the film in the March 2002 issue of "American Cinematographer". Or talk to Steve Mason, ASC, who shot the movie.

 

It was pretty hard to shoot the sequence because of the near pitch black conditions that the crew had to work under -- imagine doing complicated stunts in basically moonlight.

[K Borowski]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there films out there (albeit not MP films) that are sensitive to infrared heat waves? They'll probably have to be special ordered, but there are some stocks out there that should work. Also, why are you so reluctant to light your scene?

 

~Karl

[John Pytlak RIP]

Here are links to "night vision" image intensifiers usable with film cameras, or as monochrome video cameras that can be transferred to film or rephotographed from a monitor:

 

http://www.electrophysics.com/Browse/Brw_P...&CategoryId=147

 

http://www.ownthenight.com/html/Products/C...ntensifiers.htm

 

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclope...ight-vision.htm

 

http://www.eagle.co.za/display_product_1691.htm

 

http://focuscamera.com/prods/385683002.asp

 

http://www.opticsplanet.net/htb-nvd.html

 

Infrared films are generally not sensitive to the long wavelength "heat" energy given off by warm bodies or hot objects, but mostly in the 700 - 850 nanometer range, requiring an infrared source to illuminate the scene.

[Luke Prendergast]

Taking out the IR filter would mean taking out the Low pass filter as well, because they are both on the same piece of glass. Taking out the low pass filter would just give you an extra blurry image because you would no longer be able to back focus your lens. The proper way to do this would be to set up your camera for low light. So increasing the Gain, lifting your blacks, etc...

...but then you'd put an IR pass filter on the lens, or a UV filter if you still want to see the visible spectrum.

[Austin Schmidt]

Is this something you need a good clean image with detail such as stuff from the recent 24 episode? or something as abstract but visually interesting as Predetor? By the way, were those scenes in Predator shot on film with digital effects overlayed? If not, does anyone know how they were created?

[Austin Schmidt]

I'm assuming you'll be using a DI to combine the two formats so maybe try shooting day for night, pull out the excess blue at your discretion and composite in the sky as necessary. Since you'll only have to do this on select shots, I imagine the cost won't be too much. Since you're wanting to shoot with Ultra Primes (even if you're shooting S16mm for these shots according to your other post in the 16mm section) I am assuming you're wanting a higher contrast image, so the daylight combined with an older daylight stock should help with this and pushing may be the way to go for added grain, and saturation control.

[Elhanan Matos]

...but then you'd put an IR pass filter on the lens, or a UV filter if you still want to see the visible spectrum.

 

I thought the whole point of your post was to take OUT the IR filter. The issue was taking out the lowpass filter, which is something that, I believe, has to be fairly close to the imager to be effective.

[Kevin Zanit]

. . . I somehow managed to do a decent job at it while sitting in the back of a moving pick up truck.

 

It's pretty amazing how much detail you can get out of the F900 and still have a fairly clean picture.

 

I'll try to post more info and stills from that test later this week.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, that was fun! :blink: http://www.kevinzanit.com/images/fun.jpg

[Brent J. Craig]

I have experimented with Kodak high-speed infrared B+W film. It is not very sensitive to heat.

 

Kodak (Canada) was nice enough to send me some of their out-of-print IR publications. One of them showed small scene lit by the IR radiation of a scalding hot clothes iron. I believe the exposure time to record the image was in the order of 8 hours, not minutes or tenths of seconds.

 

Infrared film is not the same as those infrared scopes you see the police and military using!

 

What is the nature of your scene? Could you shoot it with the fastest film stock you can find but do it in timelapse to use long exposure times?

 

You would need to work out the desired screen time and have all the action take place relative to that. For example if your actor moved just a fraction before every timelapse frame, with careful planning and control it could theoretically look like semi-normal movement when played back at at 24fps.

[smirkbyfire]

I'm in the Army and train using night vision goggles a lot. In my opinion, if you're just going for a "night vision look", your easiest bet would be to shoot it in the daytime and use heavy filters (neutral density and heavy green) to give it that dark look and use a fast film to add grain. Just keep the sun out of the shot. You could even leave the sky in, because in most situations the sky looks well lit through night vision goggles, especially if a city is in the distant horizon, it glows like a fire is in the distance.

[Luke Prendergast]

I thought the whole point of your post was to take OUT the IR filter. The issue was taking out the lowpass filter, which is something that, I believe, has to be fairly close to the imager to be effective.

Take out the IR-CUT filter. Put in an IR-PASS (EVERYTHING-ELSE-CUT) filter. The reason for the IR-pass is to eliminate visible light which will be focussed on a different plane ie., out of focus. You could go without; there isn't much visible light in this application anyway. Don't know how much trouble UV (the lowpass filter you're concerned about) would be at night.

[John Sprung]

Take out the IR-CUT filter. Put in an IR-PASS (EVERYTHING-ELSE-CUT) filter.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But the objective is a realistic look. So IR is the wrong way to go. Fast B&W pushed a couple stops, no filters, will get you a lot closer to what you'd really see on a dark night.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Luke Prendergast]

So tell me what you think the deep end of the spectrum looks like. Very monochromatic, but still a little color. Quite like working with black-and-white film and a very red filter on the lens. Would need correcting. I will post stills (from the GYX1 I just operated on, ~ 1 min work) of the resulting video.

[Laurent Andrieux]

Yes, that was fun!  :blink:  http://www.kevinzanit.com/images/fun.jpg

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Looks like we don't have to be jalous about sound people, we also have a phantom power !

[F Bulgarelli]

Saludes Rodrigo,

 

At Clairmont we have a device called Spy FX which allows you to shoot with no light whatsoever.

It gives you a similar effect than the night vision devices used by the army.

You might want to test it.

 

Francisco