Selecting a Camera System
How do I chose the right camera system for my application?
A camera system may be composed of a sensor, electronics, housing, lens, data acquisition system, display and software. Use your system requirements to determine the following:
- Wavelength region of interest
- Number of pixels required in horizontal and vertical dimensions
- Frame rate, plus sync requirements (combination of FPA and electronics determine what is possible)
- F-number of the lens and camera (especially important for systems with cold shields)
- Dewar requirements if the sensor operates at cryogenic temperatures (liquid nitrogen is less expensive to acquire and is much easier to reconfigure than Stirling cooled dewars, but does require re-filling and periodic re-pumping). If cold, what is required cold aperture location and diameter?
- Cold filter and warm filter requirements, including filter wheel requirements
- Resolution of lens plus camera based on f-number, wavelength, pixel pitch (use our on-line MTF calculator).
- Stream data to disk with live viewing requirements
- Software Development Kit (SDK) for custom application development or use standard software packages for viewing/storing data & camera control.
- Special requirements?
