Sawbones

Raymax's IR illuminators are top-notch. I wouldn't expect less from their white-light products.

Spiders are one thing, and they're easily cleared away... but I'm pretty sure he's talking about moths, mosquitos, and such. Many insects have visual acuity outside the standard visible (to humans, anyway) spectrum. This can extend into the near-IR and UV bands. That is to say, the IR looks like a floodlight to the insects, even if it's just a dull red glow to us. Mosquitos are also attracted to heat, and carbon dioxide plumes (that we constantly exhale). The relative degree of attraction actually varies tremendously between different species of mosquitos. Just so you know.

thanks rory actually, i want to have the whole front door step in the picture so i can see if i have packages. i can probably compromise and move it a bit to get a small portion of the driveway in that picture, but instead i am just going to install another dome that will cover the entire driveway/mailbox area on channel 6. i already ran the wire for it, now i am just waiting on the camera Now i just need to figure out what to do with channel 7 and channel 8. i have 3 box cameras sitting in my tool box doing nothing... hmm An excellent idea... and I recommend it. I have a camera that serves that purpose, and it's been a godsend if something gets delivered when I'm out of town. Make a phone call to a neighbor or relative to pick it up, and it prevents the package from sitting on your front porch for a week, screaming "LOOK! NOBODY'S HOME!" while you're gone. If you don't mind a wider view, you can get a 2.2mm fixed wide angle lens, PLA22T3DN, for that cam, might get you all the coverage you need...Less detail, though. And the lens is on really tight from the factory, at first I thought I was going to break something. You too? I had one 484S dome that I literally couldn't get the factory lens off. I stopped cranking on it because I didn't want to break the camera.

As Rory pointed out... separate IR is often the way to go. It does complicate your install a bit, but going separate-IR gives one a MUCH wider selection of illuminators, strengths, beam spreads, wavelengths, powers, etc. Even with a quality day/night camera, it can make all the difference in the world. Here is one example through a Honeywell Day/Night cam with an ICR: Day view: Night view (No IR): Night view (with IR): Even a good day/night camera is blind when the lux level gets low enough. Add some IR... you won't regret it.

thanks rory actually, i want to have the whole front door step in the picture so i can see if i have packages. i can probably compromise and move it a bit to get a small portion of the driveway in that picture, but instead i am just going to install another dome that will cover the entire driveway/mailbox area on channel 6. i already ran the wire for it, now i am just waiting on the camera Now i just need to figure out what to do with channel 7 and channel 8. i have 3 box cameras sitting in my tool box doing nothing... hmm An excellent idea... and I recommend it. I have a camera that serves that purpose, and it's been a godsend if something gets delivered when I'm out of town. Make a phone call to a neighbor or relative to pick it up, and it prevents the package from sitting on your front porch for a week, screaming "LOOK! NOBODY'S HOME!" while you're gone.

Wireless ain't the greatest for sustained data throughput... and that's particularly true for the consumer-grade stuff. Some of the pro-level gear can do it, but your basic Linksys/Dlink/Netgear? You're going to have problems. Here's the thing when you're dealing with network interface cards, whether wired or wireless. You really do get what you pay for when you're buying NICs. Higher-end cards (like the Intel PRO series, and 3COM cards) may only be another 15-20 bucks, but they're faster and more efficient, since they do a lot more of their processing on-the-NIC... that's checksumming, scatter-gather, and other processing loads that cheaper cards off-load to the CPU via the PCI bus. The latter situation with a cheaper card creates more interrupt traffic on the bus, and eats up CPU cycles and precious bandwidth that your computer needs to move all that video data to the processor, and onward to the hard drives. Built-in NICs are often some version of a cheap, minimalist Realtek chipset. If you want to see something interesting, try transferring a bunch of files over your network... like a thousand-song MP3 collection or something, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to access the Task Manager while it's happening, click the "performance" tab across the top, and watch your CPU load. You'd be amazed how much CPU a cheapo NIC can eat up transferring a large volume of data... and having a bunch of separate video streams coming into a central server is not light duty for a NIC. It's NOT a good place for a cheapo card. I use Intel PRO-1000 gigabit NICs in all my PC-based DVRs. It's worth the money.

Ouch! That twist-on BNC looks deadly! Lots of lil scraglies . He did a super job with the install, but I would rather wrestle a porcupine than handle that BNC!!! I'm not busting on you Sawbones but it is a pet peeve of mine. Man... tough crowd here. Yes, that particular BNC connector is a little big-and-ugly, and doesn't make corners very easily, but it was the only kind I had on hand when I did that camera. Edit: I actually trimmed and taped that connector before finishing the install. I'm a great believer in electrical tape.

I did my last surface-mount dome almost the same way. Mine didn't have anything underneath that soffit vent... so I had to cut some 2x4s and space them about an inch apart for the wiring:

1. LEDs have a very long life... longer than conventional bulbs. This assumes, however, that they're not being driven too hard... since too much voltage and heat will kill them. That's what happened to the two illuminators on the right in this picture: 2. You're referring to the "spotlight" effect. Too much IR in the center of a picture (by a strong IR source) will wash out the rest of the picture... like this: 3. Some higher-end cameras will allow you to set a light level at which the IR comes on... lower end cameras don't have this feature. 4. NVGs are a completely different technology. They amplify ambient light with several different technologies. A CCD security camera is simply a sensor that is sensitive to light, but doesn't involve an intensifier tube like an set of NVGs. Here is an explanation of NVG technologies: http://www.morovision.com/hownightvisionworks.htm 5. A true day/night camera contains an IR-cut filter. Ignore the "Intensifier" claims of Speco and other vendors that simply slow down their shutter speed to gather more light. If you want real day/night, you're looking at a camera that switches to black-and-white mode at night when the IR-cut filter is automatically removed in response to lower-lux conditions.

all Day Night cameras (bullets included) are supposed to look at least as good as that second image, there is nothing special about it, except it was done correctly Oh... but I've encountered so many that didn't. I'd agree with your statement if you qualified it with "all quality day/night cameras with separate illuminators." Few consumer-grade IR-integrated domes and bullets throw out IR well enough and wide enough to illuminate a scene without blooming it out, or leaving it too dim to recognize anything. I think the WDR of the panasonic helps in this regard.

That Panasonic dome really shines at night. Here is a before-and-after shot. First pic is from an IR-equipped bullet cam... water spots on the lens, spider webs, etc. The second pic is from a Pano 484S dome, with a separate illuminator:

Siding or masonry? Yep... surface mount them.

Yes. They fly right into the lens, and are so close that they're out-of-focus... thus appearing as blobs.

How much current does yours pull? This one only pulls about 200mA

I'm still using a couple of them, but based on my experience thus far, I don't expect them to last. I think they simply get too hot (there is heat sink compound behind those little "star" IR elements) And here is the little piece that actually generates the IR: I actually like the way these things work, and they throw out such nice, even light. I just wish I had more faith in their longevity. Ah well... at 50 bucks, what can you realistically expect?

Yep. I purchased a couple of them on Ebay: They lasted six months... note the burnt-out IR array element (the leftmost one is still good)

Or maybe its a ghost... Shhhh! Talking about them gives them power!

Raymax all the way... great stuff.

An IR-sensitive CCTV camera is a completely different technology compared to military night vision. The latter is much higher resolution, and much more sensitive. Also, the latter will only last about 5000-10000 hours on an intensifier tube (the heart of a set of NVGs). Military "Night vision" is also several times the price... but the performance difference is noticeable. To illustrate this, here are a series of pictures. The day picture is only for reference, and the night pictures were all taken at exactly the same time, and under exactly the same environmental conditions. Day picture: Night picture (camera has built-in IR LEDs) but they're totally underpowered for this scene. The far trees in the scene are over 100 yards way, and this little IR bullet just doesn't put out enough light. This scene is pitch-black to the naked eye. Night picture through a Speco Intensifier (slowest shutter speed). You can make out some things, but the slow shutter speed completely smears anything moving: This is military night vision. American Generation III: This is military night vision looking at that scene with that little IR bullet camera operating (the one I mentioned earlier). Note the IR has brightened up the foreground of the scene. The camera can't see the IR, but the NVGs most certainly can. Appreciate the difference now?

Hi Sawbones, Do you mean D/N Camera with IR Cut-FIlter can work under 0 lux condition? It can, but only with infrared illuminators. I'd get separate ones too... the camera-integrated IR is usually a waste of time.

Mobotix doesn't have shutter adjustments 0.1 lux (t=1/60s) • 0.005 lux (t=1/1s) is what you get Whats the "t" stand for? Gotta be "Time of exposure" or some such. Basically analogous to shutter speed.

Unless it's a B&W camera, you need an ICR. I repeat... you need a camera with an ICR. I've yet to see a color D/N camera without an ICR that was worth a damn. an ICR camera will also allow you to utilize IR illuminators at night.

The Q24 can not see IR Neither can the day-only version of the D22 dome. Believe me... I tried it at night with some really high-powered IR sources. It could see nothing.

Without an actual ICR filter, how well does that actually work? I suspect it blurs like a mother with low-light motion.

Or they could just use Java or some other sort of plug-in that works cross-platform. The whole "ActiveX control only" thing drives me crazy as well. Then again, I'm a *nix geek, so companies like Exacq that actually do a linux version get props from me. Dedicated Micros, for all their faults, actually does a cross-platform Java plug-in for their DS2 DVRs. I'm with the OP... given the choice, why wouldn't you serve a broader market? It's not as if Java programmers are hard to find. I don't understand why they'd neglect Mac, *nix, Firefox, and other non-standard browsers, when those types of systems/browsers are often used by tech-savvy users who probably have more disposable income to spend on CCTV compared to your average Joe.