Seeing eye camera

Here's a cute little factoid that you may find useful some day. Most TV, TIVO, Video recorders, and sound systems have remote controls that use the infrared light spectrum. This is commonly referred to as IR. This part of the light spectrum is more red than red and is generally invisible to the human eye. Thus when you point your remote at the TV or other gadget, you see the effect (hopefully) but not the beam of IR light that is carrying the signal to the TV or gadget.

But there is a really simple way to "see" this IR light -- with a digital camera.

Here is our TIVO remote which has a dark red plastic front end which we've all come to recognize as the IR window. This remote also has a red light just above this window to give us a feeling that something is being beamed forward.

Now press a button and you will see something like this. Red light on but nothing in the red plastic area.

Now look at the remote with a digital camera that has a view screen (not a view finder). Press the button again and you'll see something like this. Red light on as well as one or more white or purplish lights that your eyes can't see.

Now you can ponder over how many other invisible things your camera can see but you can't.