Because it records infrared spectrum not visible light. Most thing that are usually recorded are around same temperature it looks the same. Only temperature gradients are shown.
Generally speaking, its because of the wavelength size of IR radiation. The wavelengths are longer the further down the spectrum you go, meaning you need a bigger detector to capture the same amount of information as you would with visible light.
Primarily because thermal cameras are usually made using microbolometers, tiny thermometers. It is very difficult to make those as small and as good as a silicon image sensor using the photoelectric effect.
One thing nobody has mentioned is that we can see these infrared imagines. So (completely ignorant here) there must be some sort of “translation” from an invisible image into a visible image. Is it possible some quality gets “lost in translation”?
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Because it records infrared spectrum not visible light. Most thing that are usually recorded are around same temperature it looks the same. Only temperature gradients are shown.
Generally speaking, its because of the wavelength size of IR radiation. The wavelengths are longer the further down the spectrum you go, meaning you need a bigger detector to capture the same amount of information as you would with visible light.
For near IR they arent. its fairly easy to get one comparable to a phone camera.
If you meant thermal camera. thats because the export of high quality thermal cameras is restricted since they have such high military potential.
Primarily because thermal cameras are usually made using microbolometers, tiny thermometers. It is very difficult to make those as small and as good as a silicon image sensor using the photoelectric effect.
One thing nobody has mentioned is that we can see these infrared imagines. So (completely ignorant here) there must be some sort of “translation” from an invisible image into a visible image. Is it possible some quality gets “lost in translation”?
Kinect and iPhone faceid are good quality infrared camera that are quite widely used
They were designed to read infrared dots being projected. But they actually see normal infrared flood lights too.