Pavise UV Camera - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Muny
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 12:53:38 am
content: Apologies for being from the other side of the visible spectrum, but a friend recently showed me this:https://pavise.com/products/uv-camera/uv-cameraIt claims to be able to image in the UV spectrum. Not sure what range of wavelengths. The images in reviews of it look sort of legit I guess?If I had an Apple device, I might be tempted to buy one and check it out...Has anyone tried one of these, or are there teardowns available?

author: _Wim_
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 06:36:22 am
content: I guess this is just a normal monochrome camera with an UV-pass filter in front of it. I produced similar results with an UG1 filter from Schott in front of an industrial monochrome camera. You can find the Chinese equivalent of an Schott UG1 filter on Ali-express as a "ZWB2" filter for only a couple of €. Combine this with a cheap monochrome camera module from Ali-express, and you could have similar results for sub 25€...

author: _Wim_
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 06:41:35 am
content: They even probably used a color camera, so just sticking a ZWB2 filter in front of your phone camera might be sufficient to produce a similar effect for only a couple of €

author: Muny
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 10:03:10 pm
content: Quote from: _Wim_ on May 07, 2023, 06:36:22 amQuote from: _Wim_ on May 07, 2023, 06:41:35 amHuh, I didn't even think of that. Thanks for the tip on the ZWB2 filters. The sensor in my mirrorless camera has a bit of sensitivity in the 365nm region, so I ordered a ZWB2 filter that screws into the filter threads of one of my lenses. Excited to play around with that! Hopefully there are no items in the optical path filtering out 365nm...

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 10:19:56 pm
content: I didn't look at your link so I don't know the specs of the camera that you're looking at. But FYI, there are a lot of people that are taking old DSLR cameras and removing the built in filters and are using them to photograph images in the IR and other wavelengths. The Olympus E-1 was one of the cameras that I remember them doing this with and they're more or less obsolete as a normal camera so are available very cheaply. You might want to do some research on the subject.

author: _Wim_
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 07:54:48 pm
content: Quote from: Muny on May 08, 2023, 10:03:10 pmI suspect you will have better results with a cheap camera module from Ali-express or a monochrome camera (for example an IDS µeye), but it is definitely worth a try. It will depend a bit on how good the UV blocking filter is in the camera vs the visible light leaktrough of the ZWB2 filter.This is why cheap camera's probably work better, the have a bad or no UV blocking filter...

author: DaJMasta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 02:30:59 am
content: As mentioned, DSLRs will generally cut out UV and IR for better image clarity (fewer wavelengths your lenses need to color correct for), but modifying a camera body to remove the filter or buying one that's premodified is pretty common. They're used in, of all things, ghost hunting.As for using a camera and a filter, that does work pretty well, but you're likely going to either need pretty intense UV lighting in the band you're looking at or pretty intense filter cutouts, and the big problem with UV pass filters is that they often still let NIR through, which is commonplace in normal lighting and which most silicon sensors are still quite sensitive to. My solution for UV imaging in normal lighting conditions was a combination of a Hoya U-340 and a Midwest Optical SP510 in tandem. The SP510 does limit UV sensitivity to around 300nm (and I'm using a UV enhanced sensor camera which can see shorter than that), but it blocks out that NIR and low red band which the Hoya U-340 has a TINY peak in (4% transmittance, relatively narrow band). Without the SP510, under normal lighting conditions plus UV illumination, that 4% is significant enough to dominate the image, making it a NIR camera instead of a UV camera.This is less of a problem outside, where the UV illumination is more significant and broader band, but with a ~15W 365nm UV LED floodlight as illumination, the extra cut out on the low end of the visible band is really required.