I saw a Radiance HS (by Amber Infrared) just like mine in a SciFi movie! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: The_Archiver
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 21, 2020, 11:09:06 pm
content: Tonight, I watched a great movie titled Hollow Man.About an hour into the movie I was surprised to see a Raytheon Camera exactly like mine used in this movie!The camera is manufactured by Amber Infrared, which was bought by Raytheon. It is a MWIR camera using a Stirling Cooler to cool down the Focal Plane Array to about -300F.I was told by the owner of a company that sells Thermal Observation Systems to the military that the Radiance HS cameras were over $100,000 when new.Here's what X20.org says about the Radiance HS:Ultra rare and exotic the Raytheon Radiance HS is a high speed thermal infrared camera system. There are very few systems that can do what the Radiance infrared imager does. We have incredible pricing on the Radiance HS thermal infra-red imaging system, the ultimate in high speed, high resolution imagers.Radiance uses an exotic high speed snapshot indium antimonide focal plane array and an ultra reliable linear stirling cooler to do what other systems cannot. This technology enables stop action analysis of vents as short as 2 microseconds, that’s fast enough to stop a bullet in flight! Frame rates start at 140 fps at full resolution and go up to an amazing 1800 frames per second in 64 x 64 mode.It combines Raytheon’s high-speed snapshot indium antimonide focal plane array and miniaturized electronics with an ultra-reliable linear Stirling cooler, resulting in the smallest full-featured camera available.This is an exotic thermal infra-red imaging unit that is durable and versatile enough for your most demanding high end applications. Radiance HS will perform flawlessly in a number of custom configurations including, R&D, non destructive testing, predictive maintenance, process control, high speed infra-red imaging, laser research, energy audits, aerial recon, and a variety of human and veterinary medical applications. The unit is completely modular and can be designed according to your needs matching housings and optical components to your specifications. The radiance HS is not for everyone. But if you have a need for the finest in super sharp high speed imaging, then there really is no other choice but to go with the best.I thought it was odd that they picked that particular camera to use in the movie, it being such an exotic piece of scientific gear.I attached Screen grabs from the movie showing the camera, as well as an article on it, plus a product pdf, and a picture showing my camera.I posted this because seeing a camera like this used in a movie is not the norm. It would make sense if it was seen in a scientific documentary or something similar.I think this was my 2nd post, and I hope to do more of them.Karl

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2020, 11:50:38 pm
content: Great to see another post from you “Archiver”.I do not recall whether you have read my post on the FLIR SC4000 and SC6000 cameras but they are descendants of the Amber Radiance cameras. After the Amber Radiance there was the direct descendant in the form of the Indigo Phoenix And then came the SC4000 and SC6000 cameras from FLIR after they bought Indigo. The SC4000 and 6000 are high frame rate cameras and were developed fir the military to use on missile test ranges.I keep my eyes peeled for any Amber Radiance lenses etc as they also fit the FLIR SC4000 that I ownSadly they are not common as you say. The Amber Radiance series was a specialist camera range used by many organisations with deep pockets, including NASA. It’s Achilles heal is the cooler. I spoke with the Amber Radiance project Team leader and he was surprised and very pleased that my elderly Radiance 1 was still getting down to operating temperature.All manner of uncommon and unusual equipment finds itself appearing in films. There are teams of prop buyers and prop rental companies that buy anything that looks like it will fill a requirement for the film industry. I repaired a whole pile of fire fighting thermal cameras for an eBay seller. Not all could be repaired but he was not worried about the dead units as he was often approached by film prop buyers asking for fire fighting props or “weird gun shaped” items. The Argus 2 looked like some ray gun so was popularFilm prop makers use what they can lay their hands on and re-purpose, adapt and otherwise modify kit to “look the part”. Monitors in film prop warehouses often have green vinyl over the screen as in the films they use colour key to overlay wherever image they like onto the monitor. So the equipment does not have to even work to still look good. There is good money in providing film props but you need the right stock of weird and wonderful kit that cannot be easily bought by a props buyer anywhere else on the high street. Oscilloscopes of all ages, shapes and sizes have appeared in films over the years as a Lissajous figure or even just random noise on the display looks the partFraser

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2020, 12:42:31 am
content: In one episode of "Dr Who" years back the Doc was fiddling with a very strange looking piece of equipment, which was very roughly cylindrical, & had control knobs sticking out at angles all round its circumference.Although it looked weird, it was very well made, & I thought at the time that the prop makers had "gone over the top".Some years later, working at a TY Studio, I saw an identical unit.It was an accessory for a Philips Studio type colour TV camera, the idea being to extend some of the most used controls from the camera itself, onto this unit which clamped onto one of the camera handles.The camera operators found it was "more nuisance than it was worth", so it languished on the top shelf of the,camera maintenance dept of the TV Studio.It seems the BBC thought the same, hence one of theirs becoming a prop.