Quote:
Originally Posted by Tkeeth
on a side note, i never take my ir cameras with me on the boat, and while a mounted system would be great to have for spotting barges or boats with no lights, i will not likey ever install one unless its just almost free. i will spend money on better radar and sonar. the best use of it would be man overboard. i think it is worth the money to buy one for that, and if you have some fun with it, great, but dont depend on that for not running into stuff.
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We have had FLIR systems on our
rescue boats over the last 6-8 years, nice toys, have not found a person in the water yet, using FLIR.
Trouble is that when going at acceptable search speed (ie 15 knots), one have to zoom out to wideangle and may miss the small target, and when zooming in, everything flashes by too quickly, and almost certainly will miss that person in the water, as only a small section of sea is visible
Two other problems:
- Due to wave action/boat movement, the screen image bounces up and down, makes it impossible to see anything, although one newer model comes now with gyro stabilisation. I have not tried these as yet.
- one can watch only a small area at the time, unlike like radar that gives a 360 degree picture, from boat to horizon. FLIR gives (when zoomed in) 5-15 degrees, and then only a small part (?10%) from boat to horizon of that 5-15 degrees sector.
Check details here:
http://www.flir.com.au/home/news/details/?ID=82812
Yes, FLIR cameras show clearly other boats, markers, buoys etc. Don't know about containers and floating
logs.
A word of warning. As a helmsman, do not look at the FLIR screen solely as it may give a false sense of
security. I have seen it happen that the helmsman thought he was in clear water, but the camera was angled 10 degrees or so off the bow, and yes that area was clear of obstacles, but there was another boat directly in front of him, with lights! but not seen by the helmsman, as he was looking at the screen.....
While I was reading the specs just now.... here
http://www.flir.com.au/marine/display/?id=50777
I see the top of the line model can detect a person at a range of 4000 ft, hmmm, it states size of that person is 1.8 x0.5 mt. Hehehe, that kind of man must be floating above the water, as normally only the
head or collar of lifejacket is visible, more like 0.5x0.3 mt (ie providing a target of 1 sg foot or so).
Anyway I assume, that specification is achieved on a calm day and the boat with camera at rest, and the person elevated above the water.
Back to the original question, I don't think IR cameras are useful for that, No, I would not install an IR camera on my boat, to improve my 'nightvision', I use radar for that. Yes, some kind of night vision binoculars is on my wish list.