infrared vs normal

[boily 0]

I am after a camera outside my house but I don't know weather to get a 540tvl infrared or a 540tvl day/night what do you guys think and do you have any online sellers that deliver to australia thanks

[VST_Man 1]

both work. replacement costs for a IR luminator or light bulb are the biggest thing for me. Id go with motion lighting & D/N. Bulds are easy to replace and cheap to operate........

[CollinR 0]

IR on the cam sucks and most that claim day/night are full of it.

 

Get a true day/night vandal dome and use conventional lighting or add IR if you must have it.

[cocacola 0]

IR on the cam sucks and most that claim day/night are full of it.

 

Get a true day/night vandal dome and use conventional lighting or add IR if you must have it.

 

Do you have a example? site or picture?

[cctv_down_under 0]

There are plenty around..especially here in Oz, but I have found that anything with inbuilt IR is usually fairly ordinary, I agree that a true day/night and better lighting is always better than inbuilt IR

[atropine 0]

both work. replacement costs for a IR luminator or light bulb are the biggest thing for me. Id go with motion lighting & D/N. Bulds are easy to replace and cheap to operate........

 

I used to love the sound of day/night cameras until I actually got one. I use it for security of home but also keeping an eye out on scum casing the street in cars or just doing stupid stuff in cars.

 

And that's the problem i've found with infra red mode and Cars. Because their stop lights/ head lights put out so much heat it completely destroys the picture. If you're trying to gather evidence relating to moving cars at night I think you'd do better with a colour camera.

 

I posted this video to demonstrate. The first part of this video shows my day/night camera while it was still in colour mode 4x sens up (slow shutter) and HIGH AGC. It's a dark street so you can't see much detail of the car but you can see it's basic shape.

 

Soon after the camera moves into infra red night mode and higher sensitivity so less AGC and higher shutter speed, and you can see how ridiculous the pictures are of my neighbour driving up the street and her parking her car in the diveway. It looks like some supernova star exploding or at least a high beam of headlights shinning into the camera, but it's actually just her brake lights as she slowly drives up her driveway. But it can be seen the brake lights completely obliterate the picture, and any evidence that you wanted to record.

 

I would like to get a good ex-view camera and see how that goes instead. The problem with heat from car lights completely destroying the picture is something I can't live with, especially when the target often is the car.

 

Video of example of colour mode at night and infra red mode at night. I think the colour mode is preferable as far as evidence gathering.

 

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUWzv0on_o

Edited April 4, 2008 by Guest

[CollinR 0]

Having the option to choose makes quite a difference.

[atropine 0]

Having the option to choose makes quite a difference.

 

Yeah I think I might try and find a high resolution high sensitivity 1 inch B&W CCD camera and use it along side the 1/2 inch day/night camera in Colour mode. The B&W camera recording at night only. I think you then get the best of both. Good night performance for scenes not containing bright incandescent lights with B&W camera, and the colour camera for dealing with bright incandescent lights that blow out the picture of a day/night camera in B&W mode.

 

I think the basic problem with day/night cameras is that they remove the infra red filter completley in night mode. High quality Black and white cameras still have an infra red filter, it's just allowing more of the spectrum in than the a colour camera.

[CollinR 0]

Does the cam not have IO to allow you to externally switch it?

[atropine 0]

Yeah it can be switched, but I don't monitor with it, it's just records on motion. Colour mode (superhad) is not sensitive enough in my location at night. Night mode is sensitive enough but gets destroyed by head/tail/stop lights of cars. So I think the best option is to forget about the night mode, and buy a Good quality B&W camera for night use.

[zmxtech 0]

your problem is not really the camera its the lack of light on the whole scene.

 

If you had spotlights for color and or IR for the night mode your problem would go away.

 

Also you really need a cam up on the road to get plates and IDs etc

 

the camera is just missing the other half of what it needs -light !

 

z

[rory 0]

Something is wrong with that "Day Night" camera ..

 

First there is no IR (visible in the picture) and second there is way too much contrast/AGC or the Iris is open too much. The problem with these camera coming out of Korea Specifically is they need AGC turned on for Day Night mode to work .. which is ridiculous .. using a professional Day Night camera, you will not have the problems you are seeing there. I sometimes wonder if these "new" manufacturers actually test their cameras, and if they have ever used a real day night camera before!

[atropine 0]

Also you really need a cam up on the road to get plates and IDs etc

 

the camera is just missing the other half of what it needs -light !

 

z

 

I've been trailing a camera down in the garden that's located further away from the street than this camera but it's to the furthermost right of my property and aimed at the street where the driveway is, so it has a good angle with a telephoto lens to read numberplates. It's a colour camera, witch AGC turned off, for maximum resolution. The negative is that I can only read the rear number plates as i'm relying on the vehicle to provide the illumination. Luckily I live in a cul-de-sac so there's one 1 way in and out.

 

 

Something is wrong with that "Day Night" camera ..

 

First there is no IR (visible in the picture) and second there is way too much contrast/AGC or the Iris is open too much. The problem with these camera coming out of Korea Specifically is they need AGC turned on for Day Night mode to work .. which is ridiculous .. !

 

It's an old 1/2 inch panasonic. Maybe it's working ok , but just old technology. It is not a wide dynamic range camera. I've tried it with AGC turned off, but the image is not bright enough.

 

The reason I blame long wave length infra red light is because I"ve noticed anything that is hot looks ridiculously bright and large with the camera. Weather it be a person smoking a cigarette, lighting a match or the lights of a car. I have a old low resolution black and white box camera with infra red filter, and it doesn't have the problems with hot objects blowing out as this camera does in night mode.

[rory 0]

The older technology works fine, when its new

 

Could be the lens or the camera itself is not working properly.

is BLC turned on? That can cause issues also.

[atropine 0]

The older technology works fine, when its new

 

Could be the lens or the camera itself is not working properly.

is BLC turned on? That can cause issues also.

 

yeah BLC is on. I had noticed in videos I'd seen of cameras in night mode they'd tend to have a compressed dynamic range. like everything from black to white compressed into shades of grey, without there being pure white or saturated black. I think you've convinced me there's something not quite right with this.

[zmxtech 0]

I think you are getting confused with thermal cameras, I would use the term "flare" not hot