These are 100% no dought being marketed towards military use. Especially when combined with the thermal camera and and a flight controller with a multi camera switch.
They are practically illegal for civilians in most countries to use for their intended purpose anyway. We are required to maintain unaided visual line of sight at all times and depending on the country you need to be able to tell orientation too. So to fly at night you need bright lights on the drone and different colours front and back, if night flying is even legal in the first place since you can’t see what is around the drone, so then you probably need to add normal lights too so you can see what is around the drone LOS, completely defeating the point of this camera. So yeah definitely military use and illegal for us to use properly anyway. Camera switches aren’t that unusual though but are definitely something useful for having multiple types of camera or multiple views, like an FPV view and a directly downwards “dropping” view. Edit: also most “night vision” cameras use IR lights, this doesn’t seem to. If you are trying to be stealthy then it would be possible for your enemy to pick up your IR lights too and either know you are there, find you or attack you so a camera that needs no IR lights would be very good for stealth.
The NightEagle Pro 2 was legendary in my opinion, even with the 100% lack of color, got used to it quickly. What most people don’t consider is how crisp and clear the image was due to the very fact it was true monochrome in daylight, I never owned any other analogue camera that even came close to the sharpness that cameras image was. Will def be checking this out as well.
I am fairly new to fpv and dont know the cameras. But I work with optics for automation and on small chips the pixel densitiy advantage of ir cameras can improve the picture massively. Do you think that is whats in play here. To explain you can do every pixel ir instead of having 3 seperate rgb pixels.
@@andi67951 I think that is most likely the same reason as you mention, and as I understand it the Night Eagle line of cameras weren’t even able to produce a color image due to the sensor it used, so you may be right on the money. I do know from my experience in still photography that any exposure shot in monochrome has a clarity and crispness that just isn’t present VS shooting in color then converting to monochrome. Why that is, I have no idea. I can only imagine the crispness with the Night Eagle line is for the same reason tho.
This works best for operating at dusk, when visual light cameras stop working, while the environment is still hot and the targets don't stand out enough to pick them up with a thermal cam.
I'm Dji due to the excellent penetration and low latency. My night vision quad is running the Runcam Eagle HD w/ a caddx vista transmission unit, couldn't be happier.
The RunCam Night Eagle HD is an amazing alternative for DJI pilots. It's not zero lux but extremely low lux - enough to fly in the dead of night - and it has excellent resolution and zero extra latency. The image is also crystal clear without any blurriness like this camera, even at high speeds.
The RUNCAM Night Eagle HD only has a 1/2.8 sensor, but the Caddx infra sensor is 1/1.8, which is a much larger sensor area. Additionally, the Caddx infra has an aperture of F1.0
NVC are awesome, Ive used a lot in the service , we call it blackout driving, I could come really close, without the enemy seeing , now we can fly at night with good vision...thats wild!! Im sure its gona get better fom here.
Infantry veteran here and with Night Vision goggles they have a component called image intensifiers and it grabs ambient lighting and intensifies it. It too would be ineffective in total darkness. Lastly, NVGs are also considered analog technology.
Going by the name itself and the look of the foliage in the day time, I'd bet the magic here is that's it's a full spectrum camera / has no hot mirror (it sees UV, Visible light, near infrared) that's been greyscaled. I do near infrared photography and the bright foliage is one of the major characteristics. That would also explain why it got so bright in that room with the flashlight under the door.
@@american7169in the movies and in training they did, in the real war they didn't. FPV drones are the main weapon now - they're fast, deadly and they are CHEAP. What's the point of spending 1kk$ оn something 10x better, when you have somethnig capable of blowing a tank for just 200$?
Put a fpv camera switch on it to switch between thermal vision and moonlight vision . A camera switch connects parallel to the fight controllers sbus input but the switch has the 2 cameras going into it and the output going into the flight controller . And the camera switcher responds to the aux3 channel 2 position switch . As for the lens i think head tracker could be a fun way to compensate for a wide angle lens .
Hey! super cool video and I'm glad you covered this! I did want to mention since you were questioning it, yes it does change latency from how much exposure it has. People in the arms industry are hard at work for trying to figure out ways to reduce it. Funny enough, the FPV camera industry and digital night vision are both trying to help each other in that regard.
That setup would be a good option for your RC 4x4. Latency not as big a deal. Real impressive how well it works. I have the Foxeer Night Cat infrared 850nm. Not up to the caddx level of low light , very capable with an IR illuminator. Especially for 4x4ing around in the dark. No latency issues is a big plus and no giant box hanging off it. 😎
Hi Josh, I have been waiting to see a video on the Caddx Infra, I love flying at night, especially in the summer when it's too hot to fly during the day. But B/W video, I been flying the Caddx Ratel starlight for great day video and very good Color night time video. Yes, this is the best night video I seen in a while. Hopefully, the V2 version will be color. Thanks for the video and info on the Caddx Infra.
After the CheaterKwad builds I played with Night Owls and Night Eagles along with some day cams, could switch between day and night cameras on analog just fine. 830nm IR LEDS gave me a lot of capability inside with the light reflecting off white walls.
New to drone flying, my mind broke when I saw your yard because I have been learning on the sim Liftoff. "Wow this guys yard looks like that map in that drone game" lol
And I quote, "Holy Crap, I can't see shit!" I've experienced that kind of thing before, and that's exactly what i said! Love the review, JB. You're one of the reasons why I still fly, my guy! Thanks
Great review. I love seeing shadows in IR, it’s such a cool thought when you realise that something can have multiple shadows in different light spectrums. Would love to see what this unit is like if there is an IR illuminator attached…. Could definately go into the barn then!
i bought a cheap set of $300 digital nvgs and i was blown away by how good they worked just as you were here. also, the darker it is the more lag there is, during the day there is almost none. i bought them for night riding my bikes and it takes some getting used to, probably exactly like trying to fpv your drone lol i would love to see how things work for you with that little ir light strapped to the drone, i put one on the end of a rifle
My starlight Flywoo has IR LEDs for this exact thing... It's so fun to fly in the dark! Brilliant concept for the thermal camera, I think I will try hook myself up with one when it's available, and put it on a cam#2 pad with inav/ardupilot so I can do search and rescue without spending silly money for a fancy DJI with thermal cameras
Theres a gazillions more use than just war related. Could be very usefull for rescues , inspecting if remote location systems are working or not , wildlife survey at night etc
Great camera testing! The Run Cam Night Eagle 2 Pro works very well in total darkness only if it is a cloudy night so that any city lights can reflect off the clouds for the camera to pick up. On a clear night sky, not so well. To mitigate the electrical noise, I installed iFlight LC filter in addition to twisting the video cable with the camera power cables.
Very nice video, it's refreshing to see a new cool product launch after the last few months have been just beef around DJI ban, Rotor Riot becoming a war machine. Glad to see some positive content and cool camera for sure.
Dude caddx released this and a 4w 1.2ghz vtx, who do you think would have been asking them for that? Also RR should really make a drone frame called war machine now lol
You could try flying it in pitch dark with a couple of bright Infrared LEDs attached onto the front of the drone.... Navigating through those tree branches will be much easier then
There is also a solution when it comes to making your typical camera mor sensitive to light and go into IR spectrum. You take your average Foxeer/Caddx camera and unscrew the lens. under the lens there will be a small square shaped glass. This is an IR filter. Take it out, screw the lens back in, adjust the focus and you're good to go. Works really well with IR lights attached, but be careful, those have to be directional in order to avoid getting the light directly in the camera.
This is WILDLY off topic, but... That "Thot Slayer" shirt really illustrates my issue with HTV t-shirts made in the last 5-10 years. You got that thing less than 2 years ago and it looks worse than this shirt I have from the 60s that my dad got in the Bahamas(that also has an HTV design). That poor puppy is cracked and faded AF with huge chunks of the vinyl coming right off the shirt. I have some that I bought in 2021 that if I spent 10-15 minutes actually trying I could make them look like they never had a printed design on them. I'm seriously to the point where I am strongly considering getting into screen printing just so that when I see a shirt I like I can copy the design and print it myself using a technique and materials that I know will last longer than a couple dozen washes.
Also I really liked the shirt when he got it, but decided not to get one for myself because I had just bought a couple shirts from the same company and they were already starting to look crappy so it makes me unreasonably salty when JB wears it in videos.
You need to do some night flights with a go pro or low light action camera onboard so you can show the side by side. Flying at night is a neat trick but where this really would be useful is getting new cinematic shots that are impossible today.
The delay would suggest some form of internal frame stacking (adding the luma channels of multiple frames.) Probably accounts for the blur on fast movement too.
„i guess thats where they keep the Ai“ 🤣🤣👍🏻 funny ^^ … first time i saw that there are neighbours somewhere in JBs area because of the bright light dots sonewhere between the trees at night 🤣
after all, this is if not 95% then 90% safe camera production for Ukraine 🤔 having said that, it is quite an exciting move from Cadex, it will be exciting to follow developments within this camera type 👍😀👍
Looks like it'd be the ideal 'pilots camera' for a Cine Quad for when you've got a gig filming a night time scene in a film, such as the classic city streets overview with cine camera pointing down and this making sure you can avoid the buildings. For that, the latency would not be as much of an issue.
That was a fun ride along. I imagine I'd flip a little too altho I knew this tech existed I've never thought about flying in pitch blackness. But with the heat so brutal this summer night flying sounds appealing. Looks way fun but I think I'll go with one of your other recommendations because latency was harsh for FS. lol and I doubt anyone was offended by your authentic natural reaction to some cool ish.
I was shocked to see how well the Avata 2 flew in low light. I was flying the other day and when I took my goggles off it was much darker. Obviously it can't fly in the dark like this one, but it does pretty well. Of course being able to adjust the ISO is the key here.
makes sense right? Low light = long exposure if it's already maxed out all the gain, and it has to wait until the end of that exposure to send that frame so latency. Also, if it's that good, you just need a TEENY headlight on your quad to give it enough light for flying inside that barn.
I think we know who this is marketed for. Wink Wink, I am glad that this is available. Better do something to keep this review available before its not.
I feel light a low light or starlight camera without an IR filter (which they might already come without) and some IR lights on the drone would likely do as well as this but with lower latency.
I used to do night flies with a buddy of mine and we were always amased how good the nightaegle 2 performes, but this is insane! And since we flew fixed wing, we would mine that delay that much 😮 thats like actuall night vision tubes with insane delay tho
And here I thought I invented the word "shnikies" lmao! This is so cool, I'm thinking about buying some analog goggles just to build a "night eagle" drone lol
This is something I'd rather have on a plane to night fly. If the Infra is here now, I imagine something with heat signature can't be too far down the pipe.
I would say the marketing is slightly misleading. Lux is a unit specifically weighted based on wavelengths we can see so yes it can operate in zero lux conditions, however it still requires light, just not visible light, so it cannot operate in true darkness, just perceived (by humans) darkness. It absolutely could work in places like your barn at night if you just added some IR lights to it, given how sensitive it is maybe even just a few IR LEDs would do.
It looks like this might be more suitable for the massive filming rigs that is used industrial settings where you just want the pilot to see where they are flying to capture in low light situations.
At this point in the video I haven't seen the price, but as excited I am watching this vid that will probably be the opposite for the price of this unexpected wonderfull analog camera. Great video! Thank you 🙏
crazy story, I lost signal over an interstate because my solder joints failed. crashed my 5 inch into the center lane north side of Atlanta. A semi truck crushed my drone but some how the caddx vista including the camera survived it. I ran out and grabbed it.
Remember the caddx ratel pro last january ? .00001lux i think people were talking about switching the lens with more wide view . Or try a spotlight mounted hooked to an s pad to make it switch on and off
well honestly about the latency issue and it getting all weird in pitch dark areas is the ai thing. And it is heavily software based so the latency can improve with newer firmware and see in even darker places, i will also advise you to test after just putting some 3.7v ir leds around the camera or the frame which might help a lot. That will be very interesting to see honesly!
