Thermal Cameras vs. Farts: Can you SEE farts? Infrared cameras work by detecting heat. All objects give off infrared radiation, which is a type of light we can’t see with our eyes. The warmer something is, the more infrared radiation it gives off. Infrared cameras sense this invisible light and turn it into an image, where different temperatures show up as different colors. But if something, like a puff of gas, is almost the same temperature as the air around it, the camera can’t tell the differ