Beginning with an IR camera

Two weeks ago, I bought a small IR camera on eBay. I received it this morning and I managed to have some time to test it. The camera is quite small (approximatively 15cm long, 10cm in height without the mounting kit) and comes from a Chinese factory (Shenzhen Lianyida Science Co. Ltd ; I have the LYD-806C CCD model). The box is in plastic. It is said to be “weather proof” but, anyway, this one will stay indoor.

photo of the IR camera

For this project (at work), we have an “outstanding” PC with an Intel Pentium II processor and running GNU/Linux RedHat 7. In this computer, we have an ATI Rage 128 with a TV tuner. We connected the IR camera to the computer, opened AVView (from the Gatos project) and we obtained a color image of things in front of the camera. For the screenshots below, I used a software written by my brother; pictures are in black and white because we are not interested in the colours (anyway, with IR LEDs on, images are B/W). With four white neons in a room without windows, we have this result:

B/W view with regular lightning
B/W view of my hand with regular lightning

When I switch off all the lights in the room, the IR LEDs from the camera are automatically switched on. The same objects with only IR LEDs:

B/W view with only IR LEDs
B/W view with only IR LEDs

We are monitoring changes in images. The problem is that all pixels are changing when switching from visible view to IR view. This change is not due to the experiment but is due to the observation system. I have to see how to cope with that in the results …