6MP_Moonlight
6MP Moonlight Sensor Technology by Virtual Police
The New Benchmark in Lowlight for Objects in Motion
The brand-new MOBOTIX 6MP cameras from Virtual Police have an outstanding increase of light sensitivity of more than 100-times than the former 3MP cameras. The monochrome version reaches even a 300-times higher sensitivity than the previous series. Instead of one full second of exposure time the new 6MP systems can select only 1/100 s which results in capturing even fast moving objects in low light conditions.
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Short Exposure Times are Essential
In security monitoring every moment and therefore every single frame of a video recording has to be as sharp as possible. For moving objects this implies the necessity of short instead of long exposure times. Unfortunately a short exposure time of 1/100 s grabs 10-times less light than a 1/10 s. Especially in low light conditions, the lens, the image sensor itself and the image processing for sure have to be very sophisticated to generate a sharp and crisp image of the moving object.
Only a Sharp Image is a Proof
In dark scenes long exposure times of up to 1 second create bright images and visible static objects. Perfect to acknowledge objects in darkness. But if objects are moving, long exposure times will create blurring or ghost images, and make verification of moving objects nearly impossible.
In security applications moving objects are of utmost importance, therefore short exposure times are essential to understand what‘s going on. Some manufacturers are using a combination of technologies like adding frames to generate a brighter image (e. g. Lightfinder, HDR, etc.). However, with this adding and overlaying of subsequent frames, small details or objects in the scene could be suppressed or distorted, which is inacceptable in security applications.
Optimized for Best Performance
This huge increase in light sensitivity was achieved by several means: wider sensor with bigger pixels to catch more light, a hardware noise reduction filter directly at the sensor, a new sophisticated lens with a better light transmission, and an improved image processing software reducing the noise of low light images. This is called the new MOBOTIX Moonlight Technology.