Long exposure time in short wave infrared imaging is complex: it allows to detect and image very weak signals, but most of the existing SWIR cameras are confronted to physical limits.
C-RED 2 is a high performance camera designed for demanding short wave infrared applications. The 640 x 512 SWIR InGaAs camera offers smart parameters tuning possibilities, optimizing the acquisitions for long (over one second) and very long exposure (over one minute).
In this FOCUS, we start listing all the common issues with long exposure times:
- Dark level and associated noise,
- Dark Signal Non Uniformity DSNU
- Defective pixels
As a matter of fact, at long exposure times, the performances of the sensor are limited by the dark current, which increases linearly with exposure time, and exponentially with temperature. Additionally, at very long exposure times defective pixels appear. The performances of different cameras at long exposure times will depend both on the sensor itself and on the optimizations made by the camera to improve the acquisitions.
Our smart InGaAs camera C-RED 2 offers you simple solutions to improve long exposure times applications:
First, C-RED 2 can be cooled to -15°C with air cooling, or to the optimum temperature of – 40°C to get the best performances.
Then, the camera offers you on-the-fly dark correction.
For an easy experience, C-RED 2’s dark current can be adjusted in the GUI. When tuning the darkoptim parameter, the dark current can be decreased and it becomes possible to integrate longer without reaching saturation.
C-RED 2 has also been optimized to lose the fewest number of pixels in the longest exposure times possible.
C-RED 2 enables high quality sensing at very long exposure times. The camera can also be used at extremely fast framerates (up to 600 fps) and extremely short integration times.
Thanks to this, C-RED 2 is very flexible and can be used for all your scientific or demanding applications, ranging from night vision to neuroscience imaging.
