stealthyb

First off the forum has been great and after way too many hours of research I’d like to ask opinions on my home design before purchasing all the gear. Main areas of concern are day/night issues, lenses, and enclosures. General Info: I want the cameras to capture quality video day and night with high quality images to identify faces Budget is under $3000 Annual ambient temperate range is 55-117F Already pre-wired with Cat5E in select locations DRIVEWAY FOV: Capture anyone entering/leaving the front entry way, pulling into the driveway, or front yard area Lighting: There are 2 motion sensitive coach lights on the garage (dim when no motion, bright when motion), however no street lights exist in the neighborhood Proposed Solution: Arecont 3130M placed under the eve on the corner of the roof point towards front entryway Arecont 4â€

Hi all, I'm trying to decide between a couple of Arecont cameras for day/night application at my house It looks like I have 2 options: 1. The 3 Megapixel day/night version (AV3100DN or AV3105DN) 2. The 3 Megapixel color sensor and 1.3 Megapixel BW sensor dual-lens version (AV3130) The day/night version has a mechanical Infrared cut-filter and I could get 3 Megapixel for color and B&W. Does anyone have any opinions on which camera would provide a better night image? A infrared cut filter or a dedicated B&W sensor?

I read this article yesterday which was interesting. http://www.techrepvideo.com/ADN.html From that article and the Arecont support response, it sounds like everything should be in focus day or night, so I don't know.

In case anyone was still interested, I asked Arecont about the Day/Night vs. Auto-Iris and here was the response: "It’s not necessary to have iris “mostly closedâ€

I wonder if a megapixel BW camera with auto-iris and no IR cut filter would be cheaper since it doesn't need to do color. Does your camera have a manual iris then? Do you run it wide open?

@Kiwi -- Why did you say the 3130 was a pain? Was it because the resolution difference between the cameras didn't give you the same zoom capability? @metafizx -- I'm curious where Arecont intends for the the Day/Night cameras to be used then. If you have a fixed iris that works in the day, does that mean I would need an equivalent amount of IR illuminators to make it seem like "IR daylight"? That's pretty unreasonable. Anyone from Arecont care to comment on why the DN versions don't have auto-iris?

I forgot the DN versions can't support the auto-iris. I guess I don't understand the purpose of the Day/Night version then. Isn't the whole reason of getting a DN type of camera because lighting conditions vary? And isn't the purpose of the auto-iris lens to control light exposure (I'm in Phoenix, Arizona so it's usually bright)? Seems like you would need both. Most of my research has been around Avigilon (which is not tailored for residential) and Arecont. IQeye is on my list of HD IP cam vendors, but I haven't put a lot of research into them yet, but they seem to cost significantly more than Arecont.