camera-newbie

Rory.. Do you have any sample pics of these KT&C models? I'm also looking at some of the CNB's and am curious if the differences in picture quality -- particularly in low-light are that much different..

I was hoping I might try one of these guys out possibly.. Still doing my research..

Nevermind.. I'm now an IPVM subscriber and read some reviews over there.. Please ignore.

For many of these cameras at night in fairly dark situations (~1lux or below), can we generalize that a larger sized IR illuminator can be placed somewhere near the camera (or perhaps not) and point out into the yard to help light things up to make that 5MP (or 2MP/3MP) camera be more effective? I guess you can install it and if it's not good enough in it's standard form the extra IR lighting could be added afterwards. I'm finding some of this a bit nebulous to determine without having a camera to demo.. I'll be looking into the IPVM site.. I hadn't heard of it until it was mentioned in this thread.. I learned something new today.. P.S. IPVM is $33 per month for a single quarter (3 months) or $16/mo if you sign up for a year..

If memory serves, LightGrabber is mainly a slow-shutter system (like "Sens Up" on many other cams). It allows the sensor to collect more light, at the expense of more motion blur. Thanks for the info.. In your comment above, is a 'slow-shutter' system not so good for low-light areas or is there a better sort of system I should look out for (assuming the price for such a system is not super high)..? I'd think that by holding the shutter open for a longer period, you'd possibly introduce streaking if an object is moving.. Perhaps I'm overthinking this..

By the way.. since I read about the Basler's (and some IQEye people leaving to jump to Basler), I'm very impressed with their products -- I've popped them a note to ask some questions and hoping I can get my wife on-board with a nice quality and VERY small camera.. If you haven't checked out their video on their products, it's pretty slick (look under their Gallery page then product movie).. I'm hoping the final price isn't going to kill me.. once enclosures, mounts and whatnot are added up..

Thanks.. So I think if I'm interpreting you correctly, cameras such as the Basler BIP2-1920c-dn are fixed (at least from what I can tell) meaning you set the focus and that's the way it stays. From what I've found on it, yes, that appears to be the case. The back-focus may be manually adjustable (couldn't find specific mention of it, but it's not uncommon), but it's not automatic. To a degree. With ABF cameras, you'll generally get the focus "close" using the lens rings, then trigger the ABF for the camera to fine-tune the focus itself. Not at all. ABF cameras don't typically use it to constantly adjust focus in real-time. SOME true-day/night cameras will trigger an ABF adjustment when they switch modes between day and night, but not all. Also, according to http://www.iqeye.com/products/sentinel-series.html, "Remote Back Focus for Sharp focusing (IQ86x Models)" - meaning the 832 might not have ABF. Then again, their site only lists the current 86x models, so the 832 may indeed have it (actually, I haven't been able to find ANY details on this older camera - lots of places it's for sale online but very little in the way of technical info). Note that if it does though, "remote back focus" only means you can trigger it remotely to run the adjustment; again, it won't do it all the time to keep everything in focus. Keep in mind, ABF *does not* adjust the DOF to maintain focus through the entire depth of the scene. Generally there will be a defined area in the center of the frame, and it will try for the sharpest focus within that area. Some cameras may be more intelligent, working off the most prominent object in the frame, or may allow you to define what area it bases its focus on, but either way, basically all it's doing is adjusting for the highest level of contrast within a given area of the frame. It comes down to this: ABF is mainly a setup tool. You'll generally use it when you aim and focus the camera, and then never again, unless you change the aim or focus. It's convenient, but far from necessary. Lack of it is certainly no reason to avoid a camera, if everything else about that camera is a good fit.

Ok.. My next area of interest.. I was looking at both Basler IP box cameras (e.g. BIP2-1920c-dn) and IQEye equiv models and I see most dome models having auto-focus systems but models like the above mentioned Basler have a DC controlled Iris drive system -- are these effectively manual focus that is computer controlled? If this is the case, how well do these work in reality? Is it a set-n-forget type of setup where you do the initial focusing once the setup is more or less complete and just leave it or are these meant to be zoomed in on specific subject(s) remotely? I'm just trying to figure out if I should steer away from the box cameras with the interchangable lenses. Also, IF I go the box camera route, should I pony up extra $$ for the IR adjusted lenses if available? So far, I'm liking what I see in the Basler stuff -- nice n small, decent specs from what I can tell,...

One other thought -- can any of the other IQEye cameras not necessarily designed for outdoors be used there -- such as the 750 series? They don't apparently have any IR cut filters --.. Hmm.. Not sure if that rules them out.. They do claim to have some sort of low-light feature (light grabber II).. Another possibility as suggested by another thread here : -- Basler BIP2-1920c-dn? Anyone use one of these specifically outdoors?

Thanks for more food for thought.. I did get some sample demo images from the Vivotek FD8362 (dome equiv) and it's night performance without IR is not too bad -- but not particularly useful either -- very grainy. I haven't found any images using their optional AI-102 IR add-on lamp setup. Has anyone used any of the IQEye Alliance-MX domes (model #IQM32NE-B5)? The price is right and the features don't look too bad either. I'm also interested (but not quite as much) in their Sentinel Series bullet camera IQ832NE-V6 possibly although the specs are a tad different than the MX.. For dome cameras pointed in a sunny environment, has anyone ever built a sun-shade of sorts to tame the late afternoon sun? In our case the dome camera (if we go that route) would be at the peak of the roof -- about 20' off the ground and something projecting off the top perhaps about 10-12" would probably be enough to still view the yard but not worry about the sun messing things up.. Too many cameras to think about..

Sounds like a fun science experiment.. Hope everything works out!

Cool! Thad' be great! I'm hoping if I can put it up at the peak of the roof and have it pointing down into the yard that angle may help to keep some of the sun out if I'm using a bullet -- worst come to worse, perhaps an extra sun-shield could be fabbed up to extend the factory cover by an inch or two depending on whether that impedes its view of the yard.

I agree on the "dont do it" thought for NOT mixing high & low voltage -- IF you were to do that, besides being against code, I believe you'd inject ton's of bit-errors on the ethernet line from the proximity to the constantly changing AC sine-wave.. Avoid it like the plague.. Also, IF you have to cross an AC line, make sure you do it at a 90 degree angle as best as you can to have minimal noise issues -- I believe that is written into the NEC code here in the US.

Thanks for the note! Good to hear some good words on the Vivotek's.. I'm current eyeing the IP8362 (bullet) and FD8362 (dome) which are very similar but the dome version has the SmartFocus system so no need to monkey around with focusing. The IP version does need some fiddling around in that area.. On thing that concerns me on any of these is how well they'll do with late afternoon sun in my backyard and whether it will result in an unusable image -- perhaps not as bad as I'm expecting since the camera will be mounted up under the eaves and will be pointing down a bit.. Not sure if bullets behave better in this situation over an equally mounted dome -- I'd think the dome would suffer more since it has no sun shade to speak of.. Hence my interest in one of both -- bullet for back, dome for front.

Ok.. So I was thinking initially of the IP cameras but after seeing this thread with photos (which impressed me BTW), I'm wondering if anyone has setup some decent quality IP cameras along side their high-quality analog TDN brethren cameras to compare the results and the differences in terms of being able to zoom in on an image, overall image quality, low-light handling, etc.. Those KT&C camera's look like they do a decent job! I'm starting to have second thoughts on the IP path as I can buy more decent analog cameras than I can the $600+ IP's with PoE, etc.. Comments?

Hmm.. Thx guys! After posting my question about the Arecont I noticed a few threads claiming bad QA problems with a high amount of their products.. Perhaps I should steer away from them? As for the Vivotek/Toshiba, has anyone had recent issues with their products or support? I know occasionally companies clue into their problems and address internal issues -- not sure if that's the case with Vivotek or not. I like their IP8362.. which claims IR illumination to 20m which would work for me -- not sure how their images look in near dark scenarios.. The price is better than the Arecont's too..

I think I found one that might work both feature wise and might be OK budget wise -- the Arecont AV3125IR. It looks like it'll do what I want.. Anyone try one of these? I'm hoping they've also got a dome equiv but I've not yet checked..

Sanyo was bought out by Panasonic ok.. With that out of the way, how about a nice Panasonic WV-NP502 -- in checking the specs on the Panasonic site, it lists the lens as optional.. Anyone try one of these? Unfortunately it does not have IR but lists the low-light performance as 0.08 in BW... Oh well.. I guess I'm not going to find my perfect camera.. Edit : Anyone ever try a LevelOne FCS-5051? It looks half decent but doesn't say anything about supporting motion detection among other things.. Hmm..

Thanks for the reply and suggestions/comments.. If I were to go with the ACTI acm-1231 or similar is it possible to wire up an IR light that could extend the usable distance that the camera could perceive and pick things up beyond the 30-40' you indicate? If there's such a light, is it easy to tell if it's turned on (any visible lights) -- don't need to alert the 'visitors'? I agree with you on your comment about Vivotek from what I've been reading.. Someone I believe here on these forums needed to return one and it took them 3 months to get an RMA number.. Ugg.. That's the type of service I'd like to avoid! One other item that looks promising (at least feature wise) is the Sanyo VCC-HD2300/HD2500 which is in the same price range as the above mentioned ACTI acm-1231 but sans any lens or outdoor enclosure which will add another ~$160us to the price. Any comments on this setup? It's not quite as low-lux as I'd like (.1lux BW) and I'm not sure what that translates into photo-wise as I don't believe this camera has any IR features.. Another camera that might work is the Toshiba IK-WB80A which is only a little more than the ACTI and appears to be able to support IR distances of 25m which ought to work but is not HD -- it's just a little higher res than the ACTI at 1600x1200 and the lens is a little wider at the low end (3mm vs 3.3mm for the ACTI). Anyone try one of these or it's dome cousin the IK-WR12A? One more question if you don't mind.. Our backyard is facing due-west which is where the sun goes down in the late afternoons. When I setup a cheap webcam watching our backyard, the afternoons are virtually unusable because of the sun hitting the lens.. IF I were to use a dome camera mounted up high under my eave pointing west, is a camera like that which has no lens hood to speak of, going to have the same sort of problem late in the afternoon? Is this a place where a bullet camera with a mini-shade might behave better? On the software front, are most of the software packages that might come free with some of these cameras pretty equivalent in terms of features and whatnot? I'm also assuming most only run on Windows and not Mac. Most of our machines at home are Mac's but I do have a single windows server used as a Tivo like device and which could perhaps do double-duty as a security camera server as well if it's not too taxing CPU wise. Thanks!!