As someone who regularly photographs the nighttime sky and nocturnal arenas, I had been fascinated by the newly declared SiOnyx Aurora IR Night Vision Camera. The Aurora is a compact camera built to take stills and video from color under low light conditions, along with providing night vision capability.
The camera is currently marketed for outdoor fans (e.g., boaters, fishermen, hunters, walkers ) who must see from the dark and may want to catch their nocturnal pursuits. In a retail cost of $799 it is more than an impulse purchase, but it promises some impressive capacities. Being an aurora photographer, I had been considering its performance shooting the Northern Lights so that I took the Aurora into Yellowknife, Canada.
SiOnyx Aurora Night Vision Key specifications:
'Ultra-low-light' 1"-type CMOS sensor
1280x720 resolution (stills and video)
16mm (47mm equiv) lens
Three shooting modes: Night (F1.4), Twilight (F2.0), and Day (F5.6)
Image stabilization
Video frame rates from 7.5 to 60 fps
OLED viewfinder
IP67 water resistant
'Ultra-low-light' 1"-type CMOS sensor
1280x720 resolution (stills and video)
16mm (47mm equiv) lens
Three shooting modes: Night (F1.4), Twilight (F2.0), and Day (F5.6)
Image stabilization
Video frame rates from 7.5 to 60 fps
OLED viewfinder
IP67 water resistant
Night Vision
The SiOnyx Aurora includes a one-inch-type ultra light light CMOS sensor--sensitive to both visible and infrared light --capable of shooting stills and video from either color or black, though it's restricted to shooting stills and video in 1280x720 resolution.
The SiOnyx Aurora includes a one-inch-type ultra light light CMOS sensor--sensitive to both visible and infrared light --capable of shooting stills and video from either color or black, though it's restricted to shooting stills and video in 1280x720 resolution.
This resolution might appear low by today's standards but it is reasonable for a night vision camera. In regular photography pixel size has very little effect on picture quality, besides that little pixels give more detail. On the other hand, the very small advantage that big pixels can have can be important in extreme low-light circumstances, which means a night vision camera is one of the few instances where bigger pixels offer you a recognizable benefit.
Resolution and pixel dimensions aside, the moment I picked up the Aurora it became evident that its compact dimensions and light weight were going to put this camera in its category. The water-resistant Aurora is 11.7 cm (4.6") long and weighs just 227 g (8 ounces ) so it fits easily in a jacket pocket. Its durability and the fact that a tripod isn't required to take at night means that the Aurora will always be within reach and ready to shoot.
The daytime setting performs as expected although the twilight mode works well just for a short window of time. My opinion was that I had to shift the dial into the night setting long before dusk was over. The Night scene mode is easily the most useful (and enjoyable ) because at the setting that the camera captures light at wavelengths way beyond what the human eye can see. Specifically, its wavelength range extends from blue (400 nm) to infrared (1,100 nm). In comparison, the human eye is able to determine from blue (400 nm) to red (700 nm).
Point, Focus, and Shoot in the Dark
The advantages of the Aurora for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor enthusiasts is extremely apparent, however I wanted to determine how useful it is to catch video of those Northern Lights. Since most of the time the Northern Lights move slowly, time-lapse photography together with exposures of several seconds is the best technique to capture them. That waywe make to capture more light with extended exposures and we get to compress (or accelerate ) time by enjoying the frames at a higher speed than those where they have been taken.
The advantages of the Aurora for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor enthusiasts is extremely apparent, however I wanted to determine how useful it is to catch video of those Northern Lights. Since most of the time the Northern Lights move slowly, time-lapse photography together with exposures of several seconds is the best technique to capture them. That waywe make to capture more light with extended exposures and we get to compress (or accelerate ) time by enjoying the frames at a higher speed than those where they have been taken.
But time-lapse photography might not be the ideal technique to catch a substorm: the sudden brightening and increased motion of auroral arcs that can last for tens of minutes. Throughout a substorm the lower end of an aurora curtain is able to move at speeds exceeding 5 km/s and look motion-blurred at time-lapse sequences. The greater frame rate of video works better to capture the substorm movement, but also the shorter exposure for each frame results in lower signal-to-noise ratios and lower image quality.
I set the camera to the Night Color style, the frame rate for 30p, and set focus on infinity. Once a substorm began all I needed to do is to take the camera from my pocket, turn it on, and then press record.
The SiOnyx Aurora sparks JPEG stills and MOV (H.264) video files with audio. Unless otherwise noted, pictures in this content are frames from movies files. To evaluate the quality of a JPEG using all the quality of a video frame, I shot a still in Color Night mode (F1.4) with the exposure of 1/30 sec in ISO 20,000 and when compared with a frame of a video of the same scene shot in Color Night mode (F1.4) at 30p. I can only assume that the chosen ISO (the Aurora always functions in Auto ISO) has been 20,000 too.
The video frame looks cleaner and the edges look slightly sharper but also the shadows are trimmed. This may be the end result of further image processing and video compression. 1 definite advantage of shooting stills is the capability of taking exposures as long as 1.5 minutes.