Help with Manual Pentax lens on Watec cameras

[mrmsmith 0]

Around five years ago the technical support people at my local English Police Force were using miniature Watec cameras with a manual Cosmicar Pentax lens and recorded to VHS tapes using high compression on the recorder. (This was old then.) The claim was that they could trace the flight of a speeding bullet. They set up the lens on the camera and just left it and you could see day and night right down the street.

 

At this time, I bought the same Pentax lens and as it cost me an arm and a leg, I do not want to replace it. Does anybody know how they set the Watec camera up so it could record during the night and day. The low light capability of Watec cameras apparently now reaches the IR spectrum, so I do not know if this is still possible.

 

Many thanks for your interest and help in advance.

[Guest]

Around five years ago the technical support people at my local English Police Force were using miniature Watec cameras with a manual Cosmicar Pentax lens and recorded to VHS tapes using high compression on the recorder. (This was old then.) The claim was that they could trace the flight of a speeding bullet. They set up the lens on the camera and just left it and you could see day and night right down the street.

 

At this time, I bought the same Pentax lens and as it cost me an arm and a leg, I do not want to replace it. Does anybody know how they set the Watec camera up so it could record during the night and day. The low light capability of Watec cameras apparently now reaches the IR spectrum, so I do not know if this is still possible.

 

Many thanks for your interest and help in advance.

 

All CCTV cameras can see into the IR spectrum, it is just that most colour cameras have a filter to cut out the IR. Day night cameras have a function which removes the filter for night (monochrome) use.

 

Lower specification colour/mono cameras do the same thing electronically.

 

Can you start by lettting us know the model number of the lens and the camera?

 

Ilkie

[mrmsmith 0]

Many thanks for the reply and interest in this little technical problem.

 

The lens is a Pentax TV lens 12mm 1: 1.2 for ½ inch sensor at the moment I cannot find the box for the exact model number and suspect it is no longer made. I have had it working on a no-name black and white camera with about 0.1 lux capability and with a setting of around 2 to 1.2 it worked in most conditions.

 

I have no idea what model of Watec camera was used five years ago and have no interest in advertising their products.

 

The current model camera I have is the Watec 902H2 it has a minimum illumination of 0.0001 lx. F1.4

(http://www.watec.co.jp/english/bw/wat_902_ultimate.html). With this Pentax lens to get a picture during the day I find that I need to use a setting of 8 but over 4 at night with the camera on its standard settings.