Blinded By The Shortwave Infrared Light

With the release of Tamron's first machine vision Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) lens, the SMA11F12 becomes a key component to maintaining and even improving many aspects of several key industries such as Food, Agriculture, Science, and Medical applications.

These applications require high precision of detail in everything from inspection of defects in products and foods, detection of contaminating substances, and identification of materials under test, external views of components and products, inspection of electrical components mounted on circuit boards, not to mention uses in the medical field and other scientific testing.

Currently and previously, most cameras used for inspection operate within the visible light band, while the cameras using Short Wave Infrared have started to gain momentum in the previously mentioned industries. 

Food inspection, for example, has made leaps and bounds in the ability to detect and remove irregular, or contaminated fruit and vegetable crops from making it into the supply chain, all while speeding up the process it takes to sort these out and get them to market for consumption. When the visible colors and light are not as easily tractable for the visible light cameras, you can use a SWIR lens like the SMA11F12 to help bridge the gap.

Tamron's new 1" 5μm pixel-pitch fixed-focal lens comes with many highlights and features to satisfy even the most demanding customer in these applications, if you would like to learn how they can help your business or ask any follow-up questions feel free to visit us at aegis-elec.com or call us at (888) 687-6877 to get a full rundown of everything this lens can do from industry trained professionals.

We believe this lens will bring new light to the industry applications listed and take it even further when two more lenses of this series with focal lengths of 16mm and 25mm will possibly be following by the end of this year. See features and product highlights below or go to our product page for spec sheet details if you need a deeper dive. 

PRODUCT FEATURES:

1. Significant Reduction of Focus-Shift in between the Visible-Light and the SWIR Bands

Focus-shift occurring in between different bands is effectively reduced over the whole spectrum corresponding to the wavelength of 400 nm to 1700 nm. In addition the new lens offers an optimum optical component for machine-vision cameras operating in the visible-light band, industrial-use cameras operating in the SWIR band, and industrial-use cameras operating in both bands.

2. Industry-Leading Spectrum Transmittance

Tamron’s new proprietary lens coating technology assures an approx. 80% constant spectrum transmittance over the whole spectrum from the visible-light to the SWIR* band.

* Band corresponding to the wavelength of 400 – 1700 nm

3. Enhanced Imaging Performance at Close-Up Distances

The image contrast is substantially enhanced at commonly used close-up distances.

*The new lens is compatible with imagers with a pixel-pitch 5μm. The lens is also compatible with IMX990/IMX991*