Self-calibration of UV cameras was demonstrated for the first time. This novel method has the capability of real-time continuous calibration by using the raw images at 310 nm and 330 nm without changing the viewing direction or adding any additional equipment. The methodology was verified through simulations and experiments and demonstrated to be of greatly improved effectiveness and accuracy. The errors of self-calibration mothed are estimated by comparison with the differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) approach, and it can be reduced to 1.8% after filter transmittance corrections. The results show that the self-calibration method appears to have great potential as a future technique for quantitative and visual real-time monitoring of SO2 emissions from ships and other point sources (such as oil refineries, power plants, or more broadly, any industrial stack) when the field of view (FOV) of the system is not completely covered by the SO2 plumes. © 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement