Canon Europe says its parent company Canon Inc is developing a high-sensitivity network camera capable of long-range colour image capture even at night.
Equipped with a rapid, fast high-magnification lens the camera will enable the viewing of subjects that the human eye would struggle to discern, the imaging expert has announced.
Until now conventional night-time surveillance has relied on limited-range infrared illumination or a night-mode that only captures images in black and white.
Canon claims the camera under development will include a pioneering large-aperture lens with high-sensitivity sensor and high-performance image processor to achieve colour recognition of a subject’s face at a distance of 100 metres, even in dark environments with only 0.08 lux of illumination – roughly equivalent to the illuminance of moonlight.
Canon also promises a large-aperture ultra-telephoto zoom lens with a focal length of more than 600 mm (35 mm film equivalent) to achieve a bright F-value of 2.4 to allow large amounts of light to enter.
Anaspherical and UD (Ultra Low Dispersion) lens elements will suppress the incidence of chromatic aberrations, which become more prevalent as a lens’s aperture size increases, while making possible a compact lens unit.
The compact surveillance camera will be marketed at a range of applications including conventional crime prevention and, interestingly, the monitoring of natural disaster sites where night-time clarity is paramount.
An electric-drive pan/tilt function and ultra-telephoto zoom will make the camera suitable for the monitoring of natural disasters involving rivers or bays, urban surveillance from the rooftops of buildings and for identifying automobile licence plate numbers on roads, both during the day and night time.
Canon plans to launch the new network camera some time in 2016.
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