Specialty IR / Infrared LED Lights & Illuminators - Reviews

Comments:

I needed some infrared lights for a performance art/light painting piece I was choreographing. I was trying to work out how to build my own when a web search turned up these tiny lights! They were exactly what I was looking for--inconspicuously small, but powerful, and invisible to the naked eye. They showed up beautifully on an IR-modified camera from the back of a mid-sized theater, and I managed to set up some great long exposure shots. Thanks!

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I have had several Photon lights before and bragged about them being the greatest. However, when I bought 2 IR lights, I was a little disappointed.I was expecting these to be as bright as my colored Photon lights but they illuminate nothing further than 10 inches with a regular camera. They are decent with night vision and I have a camera modified to ONLY see IR light in the 820 to 920 nm range where the lights are their best. Still not as bright as I had hoped. [...]. I made brighter ones myself for $10 each but they aren't as handy or durable as Photons.

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PLEASE NOTE!The following review is by no means a negative assessment of the product.It is merely highlighting use-case scenarios for which the reviewer found the product suitable or unsuitable.I used the IR version of the Photon keychain light to illuminate a dark area for the purpose of shooting video in the dark with a camera.Unfortunately, the wavelength of the light this LED emits is different to that captured by video and still cameras and/or is blocked by their sensors' built-in IR filter.I tried it out with a Canon 5D Mark II SLR digital camera, a pocket Casio Z9 digital camera, a Nokia N73 and an LG K900 cellphone digital camera and in all four cases, while the LED itself was visible, it was barely possible to see its reflected light on anything further away than a few millimetres from the LED itself. In other words, either the built-in IR filters of the cameras were blocking the light's wavelength or the sensors themselves were not tuned to receive that kind of light.***This is in no way a shortcoming of the Photon!***It's simply not compatible for use with that purpose unless you have an IR-sensitive camera or are prepared to modify the existing camera you have (see link below for details).A friend of mine tested it however with his hunting IR goggles and it worked fine, not only illuminating distant objects but also sending out quite a wide beam for such a tiny device.Battery life was respectable too and the fact that you can use it both in an on/off push-button toggle mode as well as via the locking on/off switch is really helpful in bridging good battery life with ease of use.If you are a hunter or a person who uses IR goggles, this is perfect for you.If you want it to shoot footage or stills in pitch black with a camera, make sure that your camera has either no IR cut-off filter or it can be de-activated (like some Sony video cameras).This helpful article explains how to remove an IR filter from a digital camera.http://hackaday.com/2006/12/20/digital-…

Comments:

I am using these LED devices in conjunction with night vision equipment for photoreceptor studies (light sensing cells in the retina). The lights were bright enough and the clip design made directing the light great. The downside was that the devices would automatically turn off after a few minutes (I'm sure this is a power saving feature),which was frustrating.

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I got this light along with the Scorpion finder UV light for my husband. He told me the IR light was very useful for night missions where they couldn't use flash/head lights & used night vision to get around.