Calibrating your thermal imager might surprise you. But for your thermal imaging camera to function optimally, it must accurately measure thermal radiation. If not, your result data may be invalid.

Fortunately, most thermal cameras on the market today are already calibrated. This means that, like most electronic measuring devices (e.g. multimeters), brand new thermal imaging cameras are set to factory standard. However, over time, calibration changes may occur due to aging of electronic components.

For the most part, using this poorly calibrated IR device is disastrous for you. Note, however, that many thermal imaging cameras are not inherently temperature calibrated by the manufacturer. Usually, these are old-fashioned thermal imaging cameras used to relatively determine the hot and cold areas of a particular scene. Usually, these are old monochrome image black and white thermal cameras. Despite the apparent lack of technical capabilities of these thermal imaging cameras, they are useful. You can use them for quantitative inspection instead of qualitative inspection.

Of course, using a more thorough approach is paramount if you want to be as accurate as possible. That's the advantage of honest-to-goodness, manufactured thermal cameras. These can perform absolute temperature measurements.