Mech d/n verses a auto gain and white control

[34Ford 0]

I know how a day night camera switches from color to b/w which is good but wth is a color camera that says if automatically changes the gain control and white balance?

 

I suppose it stays color but lightens up the best it can. And I bet this is a waste of money, right?

 

Example, http://www.ktnc.co.kr/product_14_07.asp

[VST_Man 1]

mechanical filters are the best. anything else I'd be careful of. claims are like fools gold...............

[34Ford 0]

I thought so. Thanks for reply.

[rory 0]

they claim exview but only 0.5 lux, so specs dont add up, exview is one of the lowest lux color CCDs you can get. They may be new and get SuperHad and Exview mixed up though...

[Jasper 0]

Is it better to buy a Wide Dynamic camera that has a low lux rating before it switches to color or a little higher so it switches faster to B/W and avoids picture degradation? Do some camera companies rate their cameras with a lower min. illumination rating for the purposes of selling. In other words are they having the camera stay color longer than it should in order to give it a lower lux rating.

 

What is a reasonable lux rate for a camera to switch over to B/W from Color?

 

And do all Wide Dynamic camera have the dark and light balancing feature?

[rory 0]

Once it switches to BW at around 1 lux, or something like 0.8 lux then color wont generally be pixelised, so basically a high lux color low lux BW camera is the best for quality.

 

But in all reality, the specs on Lux for cameras are BS most of the time, alot of them post 0.003 Lux when that is maybe actually 0.03 Lux, and thats still not exact. Look at the chip. Exview is very low lux sensitivity, but will pixelise, thats how it adjusts to see in such low light, it also uses all available lighting in the image and spreads that around the image digitally to basically enhance the image, so the less light in the image the darker it is.

 

SuperHad is generally not a low light Chip, it will still pixelise, but not as much as the Exview as it doesnt go that low, the camera manufacturers can enhance it digitally ofcourse, they can do that with any camera, its just like turning up the contrast and turning the brightness up a little, and to make it switch to BW simply digitally cut out the Chroma. They can then leave out the IR cut filter so it picks up "some" IR light, but ofcourse thats when you get those crappy colors.

 

Dark and Light balancing?

Which camera do you speak of?

[34Ford 0]

Dark and Light balancing?

Which camera do you speak of?

 

The ktc I put in the 1st post.

[Jasper 0]

I think he was referring to which camera I was talking about?

 

I haven't run across that camera again, but I think it was just a BLC function of the camera.

 

I saw a side by side comparison of a regular Dynamic Camera? And then one that had better technology? It was a guy on a forklift in a warehouse with lots of light coming in a warehouse door.

 

The after photo let you see the forklift better and cut down the amount of light so you could see outside better also.

[34Ford 0]

Oh, probably was. Well I have got to buy 3 more cameras and Im about brain dead from looking. I may just go with a b/w.

 

Didn't I read they dont like bright daylight though? Auto iris b/w maybe?

[rory 0]

Yes I was just wondering what setting Jasper meant.

 

Once its an auto Iris BW camera it will be as good in daylight as any color will, except its easier to make out things in color than BW Pano even has wide dynamic BW cameras.

 

If you are unsure, see if you can get your hands on 1 BW and 1 Color cheapo bullet cameras, then test them in the different locations, see how they react under the different lighting conditions and go from there. Gives you an idea at least as the color bullet will be 1 lux and the BW will be 0.1 lux. Or see if you can get a lux meter.

Edited October 24, 2005 by Guest

[spytown 0]

I thought i would explain the following since it is being brought up

 

EX-View is a proprietary SONY technology in which the P/N junction of each photodiode in the CCD matrix is specially fabricated to have much better photon-to-electron conversion efficiency. In addition, each photodiode (representing one pixel in an image) has a microscopic lens fabricated over it to better capture and focus light onto the active semiconductor junction. This results in an improvement in light sensitivity of 2 times for visible light and 4 times for near-infrared (800 ~ 900 nm) compared to the conventional CCD versions offered by SONY. The lux rating of the EX-View CCD is two times better than the premium SONY “Super HADâ€

[spytown 0]

Rory..couldn't agree with you more in regard to your comment on the importance of it. Thought I would further explain

 

an IR cut filter is a color filter blocking the infrared light. There are several good reasons for using an IR-cut filter. Using a color camera to achieve realistic colors in white light requires an IR-cut filter. The color spectrum seen by the human eye is quite limited compared to the spectrum seen by a CCD camera. Especially, in the near infrared region of the spectrum the difference in sensitivity is significant. This is important to know since many light sources, including the sun, emit infrared light. A CCD color camera in daylight without an IR-cut filter will therefore see a significant amount of infrared light resulting in strange colors. Another reason for using an IR-cut filter is the limited color correction for many lenses. It is difficult to design imaging optics covering both the visible spectrum and the near infrared spectrum at the same time. Therefore, many lenses have different depth of focus for the visible and the infrared spectrum. Anyway, the IR-cut filter cuts away a significant amount of the overall collected light and thereby affects the sensitivity in a negative way. In general, color cameras are one factor less sensitive compared to monochrome (depending on the CCD chip). This is primarily due to the IR-cut filter.

[Jasper 0]

Exactly, that's what I was typing up, but Spytown is a faster typist.

 

I do think that B/W cameras are a lot more sensitive to light though and are best suited for low light situations.

 

Gain just boosts the signal and the video noise along with it.

 

What type of situation are you going to be using the camera for?

[34Ford 0]

 

What type of situation are you going to be using the camera for?

 

One will be watching the front porch, another looking up the driveway, and another to watch a door on the garage.

 

I am pretty happy with the KPC-N600H1 but its a waste if I cover the ir and dont use it.

I have motion flood lights to light up these areas. Im the type I would rather light the sucker up rather than try to be stealth with a camera that needs to see in complete darkness.

[Jasper 0]

I don’t know your budget for these cameras; I should have asked that also.

Well without pictures it is hard to give a good opinion, but here it goes:

 

There was good information in the previous posts regarding the technology.

 

I don’t know if you want to see well during the day and at night. If you do than I would be looking for a Day/Night camera with a low lux rating on the B/W end. Nuvico has one with a .1, which is good. But the Sanyo is .04, which is much better. I like the Sanyo and that is what Rory just put in one of his places. Check out his example pictures.

 

If you want to be able to see an image descent enough to make it out (depends also how close the camera is to the subject) you will need additional lighting for the evening.

 

Cheapest way is to have motion lights that come on after darkness. If you don’t have that option you can buy IR Illumination where you really need it the most. Like your front porch if the porch light doesn’t provide enough light. They are expensive though, so I would be looking for away to introduce light there any way I could before doing that.

 

I used to use a Remington Wireless B/W camera with a low lux of .005 for years. It worked great at night, saw better than I did in low light. It would have a hard time during the day because it was so sensitive to light. I am not recommending wireless. So the Day/Night camera is your best bet. Good color during the day, fairly sensitive at night, better with some minimal lighting. Otherwise for good night vision for night time use I would look into a good B/W Camera.

 

That Speco CVC-325WP B/W camera that Rory uses looks good. See his post if you want to see a sample picture. I don’t know how sensitive it is at night because they rate it at 0 lux, because it has IR. And I don’t know if anyone mentioned this to you, but the IR in a low end camera is not effective anyway and it can reflect off the lens giving you a halo effect.

 

Unless you had some real IR with something for it to reflect off of you’re not going to get a good enough picture to possibly identify a person.

 

Hope that helps.

[spytown 0]

you may just want to stay the KPC-N600H1. think about it for the price. If you were to have to purchase a seperate box day/night good camera, lens, housing, mount, etc... you would be over the cost of the KT&C unit.

[34Ford 0]

I am thinking of that. I have been happy with the N660H1 d/n abilities for the price, its just a shame I have to cover the ir so it want keep triggering my dvr.

From what I have seen it do when my flood lights come on its way better than not having any cameras at all.

I was just hoping I could find the same camera without the ir. Which would reduce its overall diameter too. And for $200.

[spytown 0]

Do you need to stay day/night?

KT&C recetly came out with a very high res color (520 lines) and low lux

0.05, with the Sony Exview chip in it and a varifoca lens. here is the link for it. size is also much smaller.

http://spytown.com/kpc-vfa60cwx.html

[34Ford 0]

Well I wouldn't hesitate to buy one, but what if I dont like it? Thats what scares me from buying and trying is usually that costs me lost shipping charges and possible restocking fees. Hazards of buying online.

 

Its not like I can run back down to a local store and say, its not going to work.

[spytown 0]

Then stay with what you know, the KPC-N600H1.

Will still work great for you.