Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related FFQ: Camera's in the Dark

If you have someone locked inside a room where it's completely dark - and I do mean dark as in no light at all inside the room - would it be possible to have a camera inside the room that films the movements of the person inside?

I know that usally you need light, but maybe if you use infra-red or something like that?

Just sound isn't enough, but it will do if the camera thing is impossible. But it's nice if the captors can see what the person inside is doing to well, have fun about it.

Any opinions? And yes, it's really for a fic I'm currently working.

Saskia

Yes, there's plenty of camera technology about that would make it possible for someone to monitor a dark room or cell.

And don't forget too that Metropolis on the show was always shown to be just slightly ahead of the real world as far as technology went - they had many inventions that we didn't or that we're only starting to get a handle on. Lex and StarLabs had a lot to answer for. <G>

So, even if the real world didn't have what you needed, you could more than get away with saying Metropolis did imo.

LabRat

Yup. And you've probably seen some episode of Survivor or Big Brother or something, and there you see these kind of cameras, all because they want to tape people running and screaming THERE'S A BUG IN MY BED!! or other more...embarrassing situations. So yes, people can just about film everything and everyone, whether it's day or night.

Pelican

Yeah, you could do it. Basically, you'd have to have the camera set to detect light outside the visible spectrum. IR would work, but you might not get the best resolution (they'd have to have some pretty advanced sensors), and you wouldn't be able to see anything that was room temperature.

A better option would probably be something like UV. Not actual UV, since that would be rather harmful to the occupant of the room, but something like that. Flood the room with a type of light that the camera can see but that a human can't. You wouldn't be able to see colors, but you could get a fairly good monochrome image of the whole room.

In fact, there are some video cameras that do something like that. They have a "nightshot" capability which basically works like night vision goggles, essentially increasing the camera's sensitivity to what little light there is, but they also have "super night shot," which dramatically increases the picture you get by emitting a beam of light invisible to the human eye. Looking it up, I see that they actually do use low-intensity IR light. You can even buy a seperate, more powerful IR emitter to allow you to do exactly what you're asking about. If you're curious, there's one here .

Paul