P2V+ Near infra red lens upgrade?

[Russair]

I there such an animal as a lens upgrade for the phantom vision + to see near infra red thru the camera?

Many people would be excited about this.

 

[jaxbert]

Would be cool... but since infrared basically works with an IR emitter illuminating everything with light beyond the spectrum of what the human eye can see, then a infrared sensor "seeing" it, the technology is not really there yet. There is probably more hope for thermal imaging. I know FLIR is making an thermal imaging adapter for the iPhone...

 

[wharfbanger]

Would be cool... but since infrared basically works with an IR emitter illuminating everything with light beyond the spectrum of what the human eye can see, then a infrared sensor "seeing" it, the technology is not really there yet. There is probably more hope for thermal imaging. I know FLIR is making an thermal imaging adapter for the iPhone...

This is incorrect. There is a lot of info around on modifying standard digicams to capture near IR. Much cheaper and easier than thermal infrared. Many farmers are using standard cameras like the Canon S100 of SX260 to capture near IR imagery of their crops using UAV:

http://www.event38.com/ProductDetails.a ... tCode=NGB2

The Phantom 2 would be a perfect platform for this, but not sure about modifying the stock FC200 camera. In any case it is easy enough to swap the V2+ camera for a Canon. You can even keep the telemetry. I realize this is a bit off topic but someone might find it useful...so this is how to do it:

First you have to remove the camera/gimbal from the aluminum plate. This involves taking the plate apart (undoing some screws) so the camera/gimbal assembly can be removed from the plate. While the plate is apart one of the internal ribbon cables should be disconnected so the top gimbal motor is deactivated (and not constantly whirring).

Sorry its been a while since I did this myself so I cant provide exact instructions. But once you have removed the camera/gimbal, the plate can be re-attached to the Phantom (the three flat cables and rubber vibration dampers), and you will have all telemetry, minus the FPV video.

This is the way I have been flying for months, on and off (I have stock camera/gimbal). I alternate between the my stock P2+ camera/gimbal, and a Canon camera that I use for aerial survey photogrammetry work. The waypoints functionality plus a CHDK script on the Canon works perfectly for this purpose!