What is the fastest 2.4MP GigE camera at the lowest price point? Dalsa’s new Nano M1950 / C1950!

Teledyne Dalsa has released the latest addition to the Genie Nano family. Introducing the Nano M1950 and C1950 cameras using the Sony Pregius IMX392 image sensor. This is a great replacement for older Sony ICX818 CCD sensors.

These latest Nano models offer 2.4 MP (1936 x 1216) resolution with a GigE interface in color and monochrome with up to 102 frames per second utilizing TurboDrive.

What’s so interesting about the Nano M1950 and C1950 models?

2.4 MP resolution with the speed of the popular IMX174, but at the price of the IMX249:
Sony Pregius image sensors in a given resolution has created paired sensors, one being faster at a higher price and one slower at a lower price. The Nano M1940 / C1940 cameras use the IMX174 which is a great sensor and historically had the fastest speed at 2.4MP in GigE, but at a premium. We could opt for the Nano M1920 / C1920 cameras with the IMX249 at a lower price, but sacrificed speed.

Until now! – The latest Nano M1950 / C1950 models with the IMX392 provides the higher speed of the M1940 / C1940 cameras, but at the lower price of the Nano M1920 / C1920 cameras.

2.4MP resolution using a 1 /2 in sensor format, provides cost savings on lenses.
Thanks to the Sony Pregius Gen 2 pixel architecture, the pixel size is 3.45um, allowing the same resolution and eliminating the added cost of larger format lenses found in the IMX174 / IMX249 sensors which were 1 / 1.2″ formats.

Contact 1stVision to get our recommendations on lens series designed for the 3.45um pixel pitch.

When would you use the Sony Pregius IMX392 versus the IMX174 and IMX249 sensors?

The Sony Pregius IMX174 / IMX249 images still have an incredible dynamic range due to the pixel architecture found in the first generation image sensors. (Read more here on Gen 1 vs Gen 2). If you need dynamic range, with large well depths of 30Ke-, then use the IMX174 / IM249 sensors.

I’m so confused! Where can I get the specs on the new Nano M1950 / C1950, understand what sensors are in what cameras and get a quote?

The tough part today, is that there a ton of model #’s in the Sony Pregius sensors lineup and in turn camera product lines. Here’s a brief table to help with links to spec’s, related image sensors and a link to get a quote.

Sensor          Model
IMX174         Nano M1940 / C1940          GET QUOTE
IMX249        Nano M1920 / C1920           GET QUOTE
IMX392        Nano M1950 / C1950           GET QUOTE

1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection. With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!

Contact us to help in the specification and providing pricing

Ph: 978-474-0044 / info@1stvision.com / www.1stvision.com

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Sony Pregius sensor “Generations” – What do those differences mean for machine vision?

Machine Vision cameras continue to reap the benefits of the latest CMOS image sensor technology since Sony announced the discontinuation of CCD’s. We have been testing and comparing various sensors over the years and have always come back to using Sony Pregius sensors when dynamic range and sensitivity is needed.

If you’ve been watching the technology shift from CCD’s to CMOS, you have probably also seen a ton of new image sensor names within the “Generations”. Honestly, its hard to keep track of all of Sony’s part numbers, so we will try to give you some insight into the progression of Sony’s Pregius image sensors used in industrial machine vision cameras.

1 – First, how can I tell if its a Sony Pregius generation sensor?

Sony has prefixes of the image sensors which make it easy to identify if its an ExView HAD sensor or Pregius sensor. Previous CCD, EXViewHAD sensors primarily in the last 10 years had a prefix of “ICX”. Example: ICX285, which was a great sensor back in the day. All new Sony Pregius sensors have a prefix of “IMX” Example: IMX174.. which today is one of the best for dynamic range.
1stVision’s camera selector can be filter by “Resolution” and you can scroll and see the sensors with a prefix of IMX. CLICK HERE NOW

2 – What is the differences in the “Generations” of Sony Pregius Image sensors?

Sony Pregius Generation 1: This primarily consisted of a 2.4MP resolution sensor with 5.86um pixels BUT had a well depth (saturation capacity) of 30Ke- and still unique in this regard within the generations. Sony also brought the new generations to the market with “slow” and “fast” versions of the sensors at two different price points. In this case, the IMX174 and IMX249 were incorporated into industrial machine vision cameras providing two levels of performance. Example being Dalsa Nano M1940 (52 fps) using IMX174 vs Dalsa Nano M1920 (39 fps) using IMX249, but the IMX249 is 40% less in price.

Sony Pregius Generation 2: The primary goal of Sony was to expand the portfolio of Pregius sensors which consists of VGA to 12 MP image sensors. However, the pixel size decreased to 3.45um along with well depth to ~ 10Ke-, but noise also decreased! The smaller pixels allowed smaller format lenses to be used saving overall system cost. However this became more taxing on lens resolution being able to resolve the 3.45um pixels! In general it offered a great family of image sensors and in turn an abundance of machine vision industrial cameras at lower cost than CCD’s with better performance.

1stVision’s camera selector can be filter by “Resolution” AND pixel size that correspond to one of the generations. You will have a list of cameras in which you can select those starting with IMX!. I.e All Generation 2 sensors will be 3.45um, and can narrow to a desired resolution. CLICK HERE NOW

Sony Pregius Generation 3: Sony’s has taken the best of both the Gen 1 and Gen 2 to create Gen 3! The pixel size increased to 4.5um increasing the well depth to 20Ke-! This generation has the fastest data rates, dynamic range and lowest noise. The family will expand from VGA to 7.1MP as well. We are just starting to see Gen 3 sensors in our machine vision camera lineup and expecting more to come through 2019+.

Sony Pregius image sensor Comparison Chart

Sony’s Pregius Product line up for machine vision industrial cameras below for reference as of April 2019

Sony Pregius product line up — Courtesy of Sony

Contact us to help in the specification of your imaging components

Ph: 978-474-0044 / info@1stvision.com / www.1stvision.com

How can we help answer your questions about industrial imaging? We have used several terms you may not be familiar with and would like to help in your education. Below are some related blogs that will help. Or contact us via email or phone number as we love to help educate our customers!

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Optotune liquid lenses – 5 case examples for machine vision

Liquid lens technology, with its ability to change focus within the order of milliseconds is opening up a host of new applications in both machine vision and the life sciences. It is gaining growing interest from a wide cross section of applications and easily adapts to standard machine vision lenses.

Liquid lens technology alone provides nice solutions, but when combined with advanced controls, many more applications can be solved.

To learn the fundamentals of liquid lens technology and download a comprehensive white paper read our previous blog HERE.

In this blog, we will highlight several case application areas for liquid lens technology.

Case 1: Applications requiring various focus points and extended depth of field: This does cover many applications, such as logistics, packaging and code reading in packaging. Liquid lenses provide the ability to have pre-set focus points, auto-focus or utilize distance sensors for feedback to the lens. In the example below, 2 presets can be programmed and toggled to read 2D codes at various heights essentially extending the depth of field.

Case 2: 3D imagery of transparent materials / Hyperfocal (Extended DOF Images: When using an Optotune liquid lens in conjunction with a Gardasoft TR-CL180 controller, sequence of images can be taken with the focus point stepped between each image. This technique is known as focus stacking. This will build up a 3D image of transparent environments such as cell tissue or liquid for analysis. This can also be used to find particles suspended in liquids.

A Z-stack of images can also be used to extract 3D data (depth of focus) and compute a hyper-focus or extended depth of field (EFOF) image.

The EDOF technique requires tacking a stack of individual well focused images which have preferably been synchronized with one flash per image. An example is show below with the rendered hyper focus image shown at right.

Case 3: Lens inspection: Liquid lenses can be used to inspect lenses, such as those in cell phones for dust and scratches looking through the lens stack.

For this application, a liquid lens is used in conjunction with a telescentric lens taking images through different heights of the lens stack.

Case 4: Bottle / Container inspection: Optotune Liquid lenses can be used to facilitate image bottom’s of glass bottles or containers of various heights.

In this example, the camera is consistently at the neck of the bottle, but the bottom is at different heights.

Case 5: Large surface inspections with variation in height: Items ranging from PCB’s to LCD’s are not flat, have various component heights and need to be inspected at high magnification (typically using lenses with minimal DOF). Optotune Liquid lenses are a perfect solution using preset focus points.

Machine Vision applications using Optotune Liquid lenses and controller are endless!

These applications are just the tip of the iceberg and many more exist, but this will give you a good idea of capabilities. Gardasoft TR-CL controllers are fully GigE Vision compliant, so any compatible GigE Vision client image processing software such as Cognex VisionPro, Teledyne Dalsa Sherlock or National Instruments LABVIEW can be used easily.

Contact us to help in the specification and providing pricing

Ph: 978-474-0044 / info@1stvision.com / www.1stvision.com

New 1.1” FUJINON CF-ZA-1S Series machine vision lenses with 2.5um pixel resolution – Best in class

FUJINON has released its new CF-ZA-1S lens series supporting high resolution 1.1″ format images sensors down to 2.5um pixel pitches. This new series has some unique differences making it our go-to lens for this format size.

In this blog, we cover the unique differences, which are at a price point equal to or lower than competing brands, making it the best in its class.

The FUJINON CF-ZA-1S series with support of 2.5um pixels can be used essentially with any image sensor up to 1.1″ formats needing resolution for small pixels. Focal lengths from 8mm to 50mm are available.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL SPECIFICATIONS ON THE FUJINON CF-ZA-1S LENSES

Main Features of the FUJINON CF-ZA-1S machine vision lens series

High resolution and support of 2.5um pixels from center to edge
FUJINON’s “4D High Resolution” keeps uniform resolution from the image center to the peripherals regardless of lens working distance and f-stop. This is extremely beneficial in applications in which high contrast is needed from center to edge. (i.e Measurement of a part spanning the field of view)Relative illumination reaches 90% +
In general, the illumination of the peripheral areas of the image is determined by the “relative illumination” and the chief ray angle (CFA). FUJINON has designed the lens series to constrain the CRA allowing a good balance to the peripherals of the image as seen below. For machine vision applications needing even illumination, this becomes very important for repeatability.

Vibration and Impact resistant
FUJINON has done a great job within their new lens series to incorporate anti-vibration and resistance to high impacts for no extra cost! In applications such as robotic applications, autonomous vehicles and airborne applications to name a few will benefit from this feature.

This video highlights these features and more. It nicely details how the design constraints the CFA for even illumination and is a nice tutorial.

Ph: 978-474-0044 / info@1stvision.com / www.1stvision.com

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1stVision Inc. – Machine Vision Articles

Posts

What is the fastest 2.4MP GigE camera at the lowest price point? Dalsa’s new Nano M1950 / C1950!

What’s so interesting about the Nano M1950 and C1950 models?

Contact 1stVision to get our recommendations on lens series designed for the 3.45um pixel pitch.

When would you use the Sony Pregius IMX392 versus the IMX174 and IMX249 sensors?

I’m so confused! Where can I get the specs on the new Nano M1950 / C1950, understand what sensors are in what cameras and get a quote?

Sony Pregius sensor “Generations” – What do those differences mean for machine vision?

1 – First, how can I tell if its a Sony Pregius generation sensor?

2 – What is the differences in the “Generations” of Sony Pregius Image sensors?

Optotune liquid lenses – 5 case examples for machine vision

New 1.1” FUJINON CF-ZA-1S Series machine vision lenses with 2.5um pixel resolution – Best in class

Main Features of the FUJINON CF-ZA-1S machine vision lens series