Image sensing problems with laser metal depostion

At UMR there is a lab experimenting with LMD, it is the Laser Aided Manufacturing Processes (LAMP) Lab. I am a graduate student there of Mfg Engineering with an undergrad in EE. I am working with a Fastcomm iMVS-155 image sensor, it senses 400-1000nm waveslengths. We use a 1kW diode laser that outputs at 808nm in wavelength. I am to monitor the melt pool created by the laser on the substrate, however, working with H13 tool steel and Ti64 have proven to be difficult, and the fact that the laser is within the sensing range has not proved to be helpful. Using an elliptical model, the camera views the melt pool from directly above it, not at an angle, the images are binarized, and then the melt pool's center of gravity is found and calculations are made on the image for major and minor axix length, ect. This setup works with a YAG laser, as it's wavelength is 1063nm, but we don't use that one anymore.

I am trying to figure out something that would save me from buying a new camera. A 0 degree incidence angle hot mirror was trialed, but did not allow me to see the melt pool as planned. I need as much contrast as possible in the scene, to the camera can threshold the images, convert them to binary mode and do calculations. There seems to be an almost constant gray level throughout the image and when the camers removes fixed pattern noise (FPN) I lose most of the melt pool. I have manual control over the cameras A/D max and min, gain, offset max and min and have tried turning down the brightness and turning up the contrast, like on a monitor, but that proved only to be mildly effective. I have also tried added extra light to the scene, but the laser is pretty bright. An optical notch filter would be ideal, but they only can be made custom for 808nm and that takes more $ than we have to spend.

Maybe if someone could confirm that when steel is heated on a surface is makes a hemisphere shape and all the light of the pool is being reflected elsewhere and not straight back up to the camera??? I wondered if anyone had any thoughts of how to improve the quality of image the camera is getting???