Question: Is the Olympus CAMEDIA C-3040 good for NDVI?

texacoon is asking a question about ndvi
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by texacoon | May 10, 2019 11:46 | #19291


Have several cameras for drone operation .... Wanted to move away from my GoPros and look into using a larger image sensor type camera so I chose Olympus CAMEDIA C-3040.

What I would like to know if this is a camera that is recommended for NDVI or shouldI****resort to another type of camera. I figured with the white balance it would be easier to setup for my NDVI images than the GoPro.

Any information would be appreciated ..****



4 Comments

The Olympus CAMEDIA C-3040 is a nineteen year old model with a 3 MP sensor. It has a larger sensor than a GoPro, but the image quality will be very disappointing compared to a GoPro. It weighs four times more than a GoPro. To use it for NDVI, you will have to open the camera and remove the IR cut filter in front of the sensor. This could be easy or hard.

Many Canon Powershots will provide better image quality, weigh much less, and cost about the same. You can learn about some cameras that people have converted to NIR here: https://publiclab.org/wiki/infragram-convertible-cameras.

Chris

Thank You for the info .. I had read somewhere the Olympus C3040 would be a good camera to use for my endeavor .. But the info you gave is good to know .. I do own several GoPros ... I'm not sure on what lens I should select for NVDI mod .. What do you suggest?

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The focal length of the lens depends on your goals, the area you want to cover, the elevation of the drone, how much distortion (fish eye) you can tolerate, desired resolution, ease of stitching photos together, etc.

I don't know how easy it is to remove the IR cut filter from any particular model of GoPro.

If someone recommended the C3040 for NDVI it might be easy to remove the IR cut filter. Maybe you could try that before doing surgery on a GoPro.

Chris


I just noticed that at least some of the 2000 era Olympus Camedia cameras did not have an effective IR cut filter installed. For normal photography I don't know how they compensated for the NIR that reached the sensor, but some people used a filter that blocked all or most visible light and did infrared photography with Camedia cameras. I think the exposure times were 1 to 20 seconds. This is probably a poor solution for aerial photography.

Chris


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