Cameras with IR built in or IR Floods??

[rory 0]

I think the point is that IR does not surprise burglars like PIR activated visible light - the Deer in the Headlights Scenario.

 

With IR, a typical burglar, graffitti artist or junkie etcetera will slowly continue to try and prise open that window; work the locks on your car; climb over your back fence; and take his or her time trying to break into your property because they do not know they have been detected. The point others have made is that the invisble IR offers ZERO deterent and may in fact assist the criminal element because they are not consciously interupted.

 

Rory, I think there is a disparity between CCTV Enthusiasts and CCTV as Commerce. CCTV for commercial, profit making applications will always have to crunch the economics and balance costs against any customer's expectations. You will always have to give the customer what he wants no matter how stupid the request.

You still seem to miss all the valid points and facts I presented .. anyway.

 

Enthusiasts, on the other hand, do not reduce CCTV to economic expediency. Enthusiasts may try to build elegant systems that are not determined by the bottom line. You, however, always reduce the argument - and I mean always - to economic expediency.

We are talking about installing for clients here, and for security. Life is ALL about money, without it you wont eat, therefore you wont live, so yes, there is nothing else in life as important as money, nothing at all.

 

If an enthusiast wants to instal low lux cameras and PIR activated LEDs then so be it. It is my opinion that the folk behind the 25 camera installation ought to approach the problem in a certain way, while you argue that, because you have installed thousands of cameras, no alternative approach is unacceptable. My alternative approach is certainly acceptible to me.

What is your alternative approach, that instead of them spending $7300 on a 47 camera 64 channel DVR system .. you want them to go spend $50,000?? Plus all the extra money to install the high voltage lighting and the electricity spent on that every month ... LOL I guess then its a good job you dont do my bids, although I wouldnt mind if you were the competition

[rory 0]

If an enthusiast wants to instal low lux cameras and PIR activated LEDs then so be it. It is my opinion that the folk behind the 25 camera installation ought to approach the problem in a certain way, while you argue that, because you have installed thousands of cameras, no alternative approach is unacceptable. My alternative approach is certainly acceptible to me.

I need to clarify my last post .. yes there is never just one way to do anything, so ofcourse you can discuss the various options with a client .. or enthusiast (BTW what on earth is a CCTV enthusiast?) .. and let them decide. However you would find that most will opt for the lesser expensive option or middle of the line, and most will require at least some IR .. not ALL .. if you want to throw up some motion lights that will just end up not working anyway one night when someone actually comes to rob you .. be my guest. You could do beams and a whole ton of other things to, but you know for someone actually installing all that stuff, sounds like an awful lot of maintenance headaches down the road and alot of calls from the clients. As to IR .. robberies, murders, stabbings, shootings, rapes, are a dime a dozen here, we see it on a daily basis. So we kind of get a feel to how useful IR tends to become - no light, no video.

 

But anyway I think I covered everything, and I showed you guys just how useful Infrared can be, when used properly.

[joseph.chen0312 0]

Hello rory,

 

You are really a expert and I totally agree with your points. Sometimes It is delima for cost and performance ratio.

 

Chinese old saying " you drive your horse running faster but you are poor to stuff her" " title="Applause" />

[rory 0]

Regarding Visible Light in replacement of IR.

 

By all means, a nice big powerful dusk to dawn will do the job, but in my experience white LED lights suck. IN fact the manufacturer even tells you they are 20% less light for the camera than the equivalent in Infrared.

 

I had a client who used the latest and greatest Extreme gear for years, some went bad (one bad batch) and so decided to change it, and as I was so tired of working in the dark figured lets try some visible light. Great, no, not really. $700 a pop (x3) and the glare and pain on the eyes from that thing is torture, yet the camera barely sees the same light we do. Even bought the CNB Monalisa Domes, still sucks. We had the CNBs set to around 3mm, the White LEDs are approx 60 degrees, so yes some big black spaces as expected, but even more than with IR. It just doesnt look right, a cheap dusk to dawn would have blown it away with less visible glare. Anyway, bottom line is client got tired of all that bright glare after a month and decided to throw up some $2500 Extreme IR cameras .. so as you can see even those with unlimited funds choose infrared over visible light, sometimes.

[rory 0]

we are talking about ir built into cameras. we would never use ir cameras on say state homes ???? like alot of people are finding out. intruder at night only needs to set his mobile to picture mode point at house. all ir cameras are now detected also the direction there are covering and giving blind spots away.

Better yet, they could just wear a mask and then all cameras are next to useless ...

[Stanislav 0]

Regarding Visible Light in replacement of IR.

 

By all means, a nice big powerful dusk to dawn will do the job, but in my experience white LED lights suck. IN fact the manufacturer even tells you they are 20% less light for the camera than the equivalent in Infrared.

 

Rory, I don't agree here. As I wrote above, IR LED illumination is less in power efficiency in 50-100 times than discharge lamps of visible light. Thus to get the same equivalent light flux for a camera in IR we should spend in 50-100 times more electric power than using discharge lamp of visible light. Is is a real fact confirmed in theory and practice.

But this fact is not obvious.

Each camera needs 12V*0.2=2.4W for IR. Although IR flux is less in sum but it is used economically for illuminating camera FOV only, therefore we can't get this benefits in practice.

But using visible light LEDs instead of IR we can spend in 10-20 times less electric power to get the same image quality. Visible light LEDs has worse light efficiency than discharge lamp therefore we get 10-20 times difference instead of 50-100 times. I made such tests. I made such calculations. I even made Software and methodology. It is 100% true fact.

 

You could get different result becouse of many factors such as working current, voltage drop, beam angle, LED type... But strict test gives visible LED advantage.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Guest

[rory 0]

Regarding Visible Light in replacement of IR.

 

By all means, a nice big powerful dusk to dawn will do the job, but in my experience white LED lights suck. IN fact the manufacturer even tells you they are 20% less light for the camera than the equivalent in Infrared.

 

Rory, I don't agree here. As I wrote above, IR LED illumination is less in power efficiency in 50-100 times than discharge lamps of visible light. Thus to get the same equivalent light flux for a camera in IR we should spend in 50-100 times more electric power than using discharge lamp of visible light. Is is a real fact confirmed in theory and practice.

But this fact is not obvious.

Each camera needs 12V*0.2=2.4W for IR. Although IR flux is less in sum but it is used economically for illuminating camera FOV only, therefore we can't get this benefits in practice.

But using visible light LEDs instead of IR we can spend in 10-20 times less electric power to get the same image quality. Visible light LEDs has worse light efficiency than discharge lamp therefore we get 10-20 times difference instead of 50-100 times. I made such tests. I made such calculations. I even made Software and methodology. It is 100% true fact.

 

You could got different result becouse of many factors such as working current, voltage drop, beam angle, LED type... But strict test gives visible LED advantage.

 

Well the ones I used were from Raytek, and the light output even according to them is less than IR.

Really, IR blows it away in my experience, perhaps not on paper, but out there in the field.

[Stanislav 0]

Well the ones I used were from Raytek, and the light output even according to them is less than IR.

Really, IR blows it away in my experience, perhaps not on paper, but out there in the field.

 

Consumed electric power and beam angle must be the same for proper comparison. But I made more strict tests using the CCTVCAD Lab Toolkit.

[rory 0]

Consumed electric power and beam angle must be the same for proper comparison. But I made more strict tests using the CCTVCAD Lab Toolkit.

 

Same power same beam angles. After having used Infrared for a decade, even wide beams and lower powered, i was not impressed with this white light, and neither were the cameras - honestly I will never use white LEDs again.

[Stanislav 0]

Same power same beam angles. After having used Infrared for a decade, even wide beams and lower powered, i was not impressed with this white light, and neither were the cameras - honestly I will never use white LEDs again.

[attachment=0]Image2.gif[/attachment]

 

It seems very strange. I didn't test Raytec. I don't know the reason of such results.

[rory 0]

 

It seems very strange. I didn't test Raytec. I don't know the reason of such results.

Ok then I shouldnt say never just because of just one brand (its the only white LED i used so far) .. I see you put ALOT of time into your software so I will trust your word on it.

[Fiona 0]

Originally, I mistook this website for a Public Forum that discussed the minutiae of closed circuit television. I didn’t initially realise that it is not really a public forum for the free exchange of information so much as a profit making scheme intended to expand the private fiefdom of one man (and his disciples) on his Holy Grail of grasping for money like Ebenezer Scrooge. Anyone who dares to disagree with Bruce Lee is then personally belittled or attacked.

 

If it were a genuine forum, then discussions about CCTV would not be stampeded by the Thought Police (Bruce) wielding his num-chuks. If a person wants to discuss the merits of any particular camera, then he should not be automatically hit by a robotic caveat which reads: “If It Cannot Make A Profit Then Shutup.” (Then imagine a flying side kick, a vocal squeal and spinning num-chuks.)

 

Imagine a Hi Fi Forum or a Computer Forum where every issue was evaluated by the cheap criteria “How much can I sell that for?” And where every comment was picked apart for profit.

 

An enthusiast is a person who takes an interest in a subject or an artefact for reasons that are not pecuniary. So a CCTV enthusiast would be a person who is interested in the historical development, design, construction and application of surveillance camera technology.

[rory 0]

Your the noob that came up in here all high and mighty belittling people for even suggesting the use of 12VDC and Infrared like there is some "holy grail" of cctv that says one cant do it that way .... sorry but if you cant take the heat well you know .. kitchen and all that. Its good to know you dont have to work for a living though, that your money falls out of the sky. Wish I lived in that la la land.

[Fiona 0]

Moving on and back to the question.

 

Essa, you didn’t say if the acreage has HID area lights installed such as pole mounted mercury or sodium vapour or is it an entirely unlit expanse?

 

Bosch have produced an interesting pamphlet on an IR company it acquired.

Bosch GMBH warns of the degradation of IR over time but perhaps the German Electronics Icon got it wrong?

 

See: http://stna.resource.bosch.com/documents/Data_sheet_enUS_1770432523.pdf

 

This is not the original Aegis document, however Bosch does acknowledge the degradation of IR which would have a larger affect over the maximum distance you mention of 100 metres.

 

Actually, here is the original AEGIS document I referred to:

http://www.cbc-cctv.com/uploads/tx_n21download/AEGIS_INTELLIGENT_IR_261007.pdf

Edited December 30, 2011 by Guest

[Stanislav 0]

Same power same beam angles. After having used Infrared for a decade, even wide beams and lower powered, i was not impressed with this white light, and neither were the cameras - honestly I will never use white LEDs again.

[attachment=0]Image2.gif[/attachment]

 

 

Please see the spectral response curve copied from Sony HAD CCD image sensor ICX205AL user manual, Page 8

 

 

This curve shows that the CCD sensor has in several time more sensitivity in Visible light range than in IR LED range.

The difference can vary with other image sensors, but sensitivity to Visible light is always greater than to IR in several times.

Thus with the same power emmitted a visible light LED must be more effective than an IR LED. Not in all cases in 10-20 times but no less than in 2 times.

 

I checked the Raytec web site and parameters of their illuminators. The parameters of White IR are good. For example, the Light efficiency of White illuminator RAYLUX 200 is 4700Lm/80W=58.75Lm/W. It is well value for LED.

Unfortunately, the User manual of IR RAYMAX 200 doesn't contain value of its optical power. I could not find also definition of the "maximum range" and how it has been measured.

I suppose there is a difference in definition of "maximal range" for IR and White LEDs. Besouse White LED is used as a rule with color cameras, but IR is used with more sensitive B/W and D/N.

As a rule when using visible light installers expect better quality. It can be another reason of more prudent value of maximal range of Visible light.

The third reason is that historically manufacturers of IR illuminators overrated the "maximal range" of their products. There is no power standards in IR field. It is like camera sensitivity value which is overrated in the most cases and all know this fact. But in the Visible light engineering field the strict standards are in force.

 

I wrote email to the Technical director of Raytec with this question and link to this topic. I hope he will answer.

[rory 0]

 

 

Please see the spectral response curve copied from Sony HAD CCD image sensor ICX205AL user manual, Page 8

 

 

This curve shows that the CCD sensor has in several time more sensitivity in Visible light range than in IR LED range.

The difference can vary with other image sensors, but sensitivity to Visible light is always greater than to IR in several times.

Thus with the same power emmitted a visible light LED must be more effective than an IR LED. Not in all cases in 10-20 times but no less than in 2 times.

I agree to a point. Except this white LED light was nothing like conventional visible lighting, its dim yet painful on the eyes.

[Stanislav 0]

I agree to a point. Except this white LED light was nothing like conventional visible lighting, its dim yet painful on the eyes.

 

White light can't be painful to the CCD sensors

 

I continue to think about this...

It is very important which camera type is used for measuring max range. For b/w cameras visible light LED must excels IR LED in efficiency in several times as I wrote and measured.

But for D/N cameras with removable IR filter and for Color cameras without the IR filter the difference can be less.

It is possible becouse such camera has colour filter which can't be removed. This color filter causes losing sensitivity in visible range in several times. This is the reason of less sensitivity in visible light of D/N cameras against B/W camera.

However the colour filter doesn't reduce sensitivity in IR range equally, but the special IR filter is removed in low light.

This can alter proportion between IR and visible light sensitivity for benefit of IR.

Using Exview HAD sensor can additionaly increase sensitivity in IR range.

In result Visible light efficiency can excel IR with color cameras not in 10-20 times but only in 2-10 times. Acording to inverse square law the max distance must change as square root, in 1.4-3 times only. This difference is not big and non-accurate measuring can ignore it. Other factors such as electric voltage or current, beam angle, internal circuit features, reflection of the scene have influence on the result.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Guest

[rory 0]

White light can't be painful to the CCD sensors

 

I continue to think about this...

It is very important which camera type is used for measuring max range. For b/w cameras visible light LED must excels IR LED in efficiency in several times as I wrote and measured.

But for D/N cameras with removable IR filter and for Color cameras without the IR filter the difference can be less.

It is possible becouse such camera has colour filter which can't be removed. This color filter causes losing sensitivity in visible range approximately in 5 times. This is the reason of less sensitivity in visible light of D/N cameras against B/W camera.

However the colour filter doesn't reduce sensitivity in IR range in 5 times, but the special IR filter is removed in low light.

This can alter proportion between IR and visible light sensitivity up to 5 times for benefit of IR.

Using Exview HAD sensor can additionaly increase sensitivity in IR range.

In result Visible light efficiency can excel IR with color cameras not in 10-20 times but only in 1.5-3 times. Acording to inverse square law the max distance must change as square root, in 1.2-1.4 times only. This difference is not big and non-accurate measuring can ignore it. Other factors such as electric voltage or current, beam angle, internal circuit features, reflection of the scene have influence on the result.

Yes its been a while but that is pretty much what I figured at the time. The camera stays in color mode so it is less sensitive. If I put it to BW only it might have been much better but then ofcourse it would be BW all the time. Pretty much with the white LED the camera always stays in color mode even with DN enabled, unless one uses the external switchover on the camera and tie that into the LED switchover. Either way the client in that case had it with all that light anyway after just a month or two, and asked it be removed and replaced it with $2500 Bosch IR cameras.

[Stanislav 0]

The camera stays in color mode so it is less sensitive. If I put it to BW only it might have been much better but then ofcourse it would be BW all the time. Pretty much with the white LED the camera always stays in color mode even with DN enabled, unless one uses the external switchover on the camera and tie that into the LED switchover.

 

Not exactly what I had in mind.

True D/N camera with removable IR filter has close sensitivity to White LED in COLOR and B/W modes.

Moving off the IR filter has no influence on sensitivity to White light LED becouse the spectrum of the LED has no IR components.

 

Moving off the IR filter increases sensitivity to tungsten lamp, to IR illumination, but doesn't increase sensitivity to White LED, discharge lamps, luminiscent lamp.. Thus if you could switch your TDN cameras to B/W mode, it didn't improve sensitivity to White LED. I suppose there is no reason to use TDN cameras with White LED.

[Stanislav 0]

There is additional reason of why the scene illuminated by IR illuminator might look more brightly.

Most of materials have different reflection factors in visible light and in IR.

 

For example, if we assume that a human body has closer reflection factor, then green grass reflects IR radiation better than the visible light of a halogen lamp in 2.2 times! (according to my own tests with CCTVCAD Lab Toolkit).

In comparision with White LED the difference should be 3 times and more (becouse of the Halogen lamp light contains a lot of IR too), but I didn't measure comparision with White IR.

 

Thus a scene with a lot of vegetation looks more brightly in IR when a human body looks darker.

[rory 0]

In comparision with White LED the difference should be 3 times and more (becouse of the Halogen lamp light contains a lot of IR too), but I didn't measure comparision with White IR.

 

White LED is very little light output compared to conventional visible light or halogen lamp.

 

I suppose there is no reason to use TDN cameras with White LED.

I dont see any reason to use white LED at all now

After client spent over $2000 on 3 white LED and they sucked worse than cheap dusk to dawn

[Stanislav 0]

White LED is very little light output compared to conventional visible light or halogen lamp.

 

What do you imply by the "light output"?

The "light flux"="Lumen Output" is shown in any Raytec illuminator's spec. For example, RL200 has the Lumen Output =4700 lumen.

 

 

A Tungsten Halogen lamp of 300Watt has close Lumen Output. But RL200 consumes no more than 80Watt according to the spec. Thus the Light Efficiency Factor of the RL200 is better than the Halogen lamp in 3.75 times (300/80) and this Illuminator must be good.

For color cameras with IR cut filters the "light flux"="Lumen Output" in lumens is important only. For B/W, TDN and Color cameras without the IR Cut filter not only the lumens have influence. Please see details What is the Spectral efficiency factor if you are interested.

 

I dont see any reason to use white LED at all now

After client spent over $2000 on 3 white LED and they sucked worse than cheap dusk to dawn

 

However the white LED illuminators are widely used in spite of your negative experience.

I see the following features:

Visible light for human eyes and color image (as against IR), higher Light Efficiency Factor (as against Tungsten Halogen), narrow beam as IR LED ( as against Discharge lamps), fast start ( as against Discharge lamps), low voltage ( as against Discharge lamps).....

 

In some cases these features become advantages. IR illumination is preferable in some cases, but in some other cases White LED is more suitable (especially with color cameras with IR cut filter).

[rory 0]

However the white LED illuminators are widely used in spite of your negative experience.

All I know is from my experience with it, and it basically sucks.

IMO its useless for video surveillance and a total waste of money.

Just because people use something doesnt mean its good (eg. cocaine)

[rory 0]

What do you imply by the "light output"?

the amount of light, that is outputted, eg. the light your eyes or the camera can see.

 

the difference of light is like that between a 50 watt light bulb and a 100 watt lightbulb, the average spot or dusk to dawn being the latter. For 30x the price and less light .. thanks but no thanks, ill stick to conventional lighting from now on - plus that is one less thing we have to install.