Friday, October 7, 2016

Going Well Beyond The Visible Spectrum, In A Conventional Camera?

Hi there.
Today I will write about the research that I did about being able to see past the visible light spectrum. I asked various people on the internet about building and/or obtaining a camera that could have a spectral response much greater than a conventional camera. Sure, there are relatively conventional cameras which see Near Infrared, as well as Ultraviolet light, practically down to about three hundred Nanometers, which people modify from existing cameras. I think it's a fascinating topic, though I think that it would be truly fascinating to go well beyond those limits, and expand the range of a conventional camera from 190 Nanometers to approximately 1800 Nanometers. So, as I've mentioned in the above paragraph, this is not about the cameras which people modify, which see merely a very narrow spectrum of Ultraviolet light, which starts at about three hundred Nanometers and go to about one thousand Nanometers. It's much more interesting to explore the world in full spectrum by going beyond such a narrow spectrum, though such an exploration is also quite mysterious at the same time, because essentially it hasn't been achieved before.
Obviously, this wouldn't necessarily be considered conventional. Also, I think that film is an interesting medium, as it is thought that film sees more than modern digital cameras.
It is also obvious, to someone who has done their research, there are serious challenges when you shift the color spectrum of a camera beyond the visible light spectrum. The challenge with the Infrared light spectrum is that at such immense light wavelengths, a camera sensor produces low resolving ability due to diffraction. The benefit though, is that Infrared light is not easily diffused by air molecules, which means that what seems to be fog to us in the visible light spectrum could be invisible to Infrared light.
The challenge with the Ultraviolet light spectrum is that at such immensely short light wavelengths, the light diffuses and is absorbed in the air relatively quickly. It's as though there is a fog that exists, though the fog is usually entirely invisible to the visible light spectrum. The benefit though, is that Ultraviolet light expands the depth of field, so objects that are closer to a camera can be focused more easily with greater detail, and the detail will expand further into the background, which will be more
in focus, unlike Infrared light which causes only a narrow focus. This is readily noticeable at the microscopic scale, which also introduces diffraction, and at which extremely small scale such as the quantum, the only viable method for exploring reality is by implementing Electrons.
Getting back to the topic, the most important aspect of a camera in being able to see beyond the visible light spectrum would most likely be the lens. The lens that belongs to a conventional camera is made out of glass that doesn't allow much light beyond the visible light spectrum to be transmitted, and almost all Ultraviolet light does not get transmitted. So even by just modifying an existing camera, people already think that their full spectrum camera can see much in the Ultraviolet spectrum. A regular lens has an Infrared coating, and so does the filter used in modern cameras, also called a hot mirror. A lens made of Quartz increases, or helps to make the spectrum of Ultraviolet light more visible to a camera. A lens made of fused silica might shift the spectrum even further.
Now that the lens has been explained, how about any other technical difficulties with a regular camera?
The sensor that people usually implement in conventional cameras is made out of Silicon. Silicon becomes unresponsive to light which resides at a wavelength of approximately less than 250 Nanometers. People have tried, and it is definitely not possible, let alone easy. So to create a camera with improved spectral sensitivity, specialized sensors have been implemented for scientific equipment. Such sensors are called back-thinned sensors. Astronomical cameras have such advanced technology. Then there is what's known as a back-Illuminated UV-Enhanced-Silicon sensor.
So, the conclusion about going well beyond the visible spectrum, in a conventional camera, is that the best method or solution of seeing much of any Ultraviolet light, or expanding the Infrared spectrum further, is to actually build a camera yourself. Some astronomical cameras use back-thinned sensors. Modern cameras use sensors which are becoming progressively more responsive to light beyond what our vision can perceive, though there are various challenges which make exploring beyond the visible light spectrum practically impossible by using a conventional camera, no matter how advanced the sensors become in the future. New technologies need to be combined to explore the unknown. People claim that they see strange phenomena and we know about this as paranormal. I'm a skeptic, though I know that there is much more to what we can see.
http://randombio.com/uv.html
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58431428
http://randombio.com/uv2.html


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