Should I FORCE my cams into b/w mode?

[sequoia 0]

I have bosch cams watching the parking lot areas of a car wash. The wash is lit with metal halide lamps.

 

I've noticed that the lighting at night is strong enough so that the bosch cams dont switch to b/w mode. They stay in color mode as the lighting is good. My other cams, watching other areas, and from an earlier purchase and not bosch brand, switch to b/w quickly as the sun sets.

 

I want to identify, by face, people who vandalize the wash, try to break in, or dump trash and hazardous waste. Here is my question:

 

Given the same amount of light, will I get better resolution by adjusting the settings and forcing my bosch cams into b/w mode to capture details of night-time visitors? Or should I stick with the defaults and lets the bosch cams remain in color 24/hrs/day?

[rory 0]

Should be clearer in BW mode if they are TDN cameras.

I have some domes now that just wont switch to BW and in color they try to compensate too much so they are too pixelized, when they are forced into BW they are much clearer, as for example in color they are 0.1 lux in BW they are 0.01 lux. This is pretty much standard with TDN but can still differ from one to the next especially depending on what other features the camera has.

[sequoia 0]

Well I *tried* to force the bosch cam into b/w mode but it would not do it. It is a WDR camera.

 

Using bilinx, I tried going to the max extremes on sensitivity and it still would never switch to b/w mode. I could make it 100% b/w but then I would lose daytime color ????

[SEANHAWG 1]

Get a seperate used B/W Bosch Camera on Ebay and put right beside it. You can get great deals on Bosch or any other name brand B/W cameras on ebay. Nobody wants B/W anymore so they sell for pretty cheap.