We continue to hear about the rise in the popularity and use of a personal night vision camcorder. Camcorder technology is constantly improving and hardly a day goes by without another new announcement of a new improvement in current technology, or a completely new discovery.

The method of designing and making the internal CCD used in night vision camcorders is a highly researched field. Manufacturers worldwide are researching new and previously unexplored areas to find faster and better ways to build low light and no light sensors. Making the sensors more effective while finding new means of keeping the cost of manufacture as low as possible has been driving a number of new innovations.

It is estimated that the worldwide market for CCD units will exceed two billion units within the next three years.

More and more manufacturers are making advances in sensors that use only the available visible light to record in what the eye perceives as a no light situation.

Ultra low light performance is enhanced when the sensor in the camcorder or camera either increases the accuracy of its photon capturing ability, or enhances the sensor performance to enable faster capturing of photons. Both these measures are factors that determine the quality of the final video image. High quality internal sensors with fast performance allow filming in ultra low light using only existing visible light without the need for some other type of illumination.

This ability for a night vision camcorder to be able to 'film in the dark' using only the small amount of available visible light is coming closer and closer to being marketed at pricing that will allow mass sales in the consumer market.

Many current camcorders use sensors that are sensitive to infrared light. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, so it is possible to augment the lighting with infrared illuminators that are either built into the camera or by using a separate infrared light source. While this allows filming in the dark the cost of providing the extra IR light is a factor that has to be considered.

This makes the news of new visible light technology sensors very interesting. While you may not find a consumer priced night vision camcorder that truly gives high performance filming in near total darkness on the shelves of your local electronics store today, it will probably not be that much longer before affordable units will be available.

It wasn't very long ago that the idea of having a personal night vision video camera that could record in the dark was something you could only dream of. Now it seems that units that will have amazing capabilities are only a few years, or perhaps a few months, in the future.