Sunday, July 3, 2016

Runcam Owl Plus Review (compared to HS1177, night vision comparison - how dark?)

Runcam sent me their top cam - let's see if you can fly in total darkness with it! I compare the Owl against the popular HS1177 with a nice dual monitor setup.

►RunCam Owl Plus Specs:
1/2″ image sensor
700TVL horizontal resolution;
150 degree FOV lens (2.4 mm)
5V to 22V (suitable for 2s – 5s LI-POs)
light senility, 0.0001 Lux/1.2F min. illumination
Digital Wide Dynamic Range (D-WDR)
Digital Noise Reduction (2DNR)
Automatic gain control (AGC)
Back light compensation (BLC)
OSD menu
26 mm x 26 mm x 30 mm, 15 g net weight.

►Thoughts:
The OSD is pretty straight forward, just activated the DWDR and played with colors and contrast a bit.
Not as good with shadowd vs. sunlight on the day, but awesome in the night. Although you shouldnt expect to fly a miniquad in acro mode without "some" light in the night.
If you use it on a GPS stabilized quad or plane you could really almost fly in pitch black nights.
If you wanna explore darker buildings you will be surprised how long you get coloured images until it finally switches to BW mode.

I will have to do a few flights, but I think you can definitly use it as a standard cam and also fly in daylight if you are not too picky. And it is definitly better than those cheaper CMOS cams (like the one that came with my Vortex250).

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