Infrared Illuminators

[CollinR]

So what is the solution for good day AND night time images? Have two cameras (color for day and B&W for night)? Spend $$ for a better all around camera? Get good lighting that comes on with motion detection?

Do the color cameras that switch to true B&W at light really work?

True Day/Night or "24 hour" cameras also as you said cameras with dual imagers also wok well. I have a variety of both. Yup they cost more starting around ~$300 ($250 for CTers) and going up.

Good lighting is always nice.

Yes but there is also optics that make a big difference. However most cameras just kill color saturation to make a B&W picture and kick up the gain. Thats exactly what that Xavee POS was doing in that video clip.

 

[Helheim]

I have a Panasonic WV-CP484 that is color in the day and B&W at night and it works well but it was more expensive as well.

 

[CollinR]

Yes that is probably the best analog camera available.

 

[CollinR]

Here is one of the things I am doing now, this is captured by SageTV from my quad processor. Each of the 4 feeds are captured at the DVR as well but running through a quad before going into SageTV is nice as you can see more without waiting or switching channels. So basically all I did was inside SageTV setup a 2 minute timed record then immedately sent the signal that exterior motion was detected in the front. You will see the exterior lighting adjust then the first 2 cameras begin scanning through presets, it does this for some amount of time and then resets back the way it was at the beginning. The first camera is a color PTZ and as you can see it needs a crapload of light to function, thats a 100 watt bulb in that fixture right next to it. The second PTZ is one of the units from the CT group buy that didn't get enough interest, it is a true 24 hour camera. About 10-15' away from it is a 60watt bulb and it's almost too much light as you can see by the contrast on the front of the car. Both fixtures are X-10 controlled and are ramped to 100% output while scanning. After watching this I think I may adjust a couple of things.

Both light fixtures are inexpensive frosted iirc bronze/gothic, the important part is: Incandescent bulbs, frosted to scatter the light.

This is in xvid I can play it with VLC.
Night routine
Right click save as.

 

[need2gofaster]

I would love to see a small snippet of that video, so people can learn from this. Many people think IR is some magical solution, but in most cases, it causes nothing but problems. I have gone through several cameras with IR onboard, and they have been a disappointment every single time.

As you wish, Xavee day/night IR bullet camera ($150) vs. LVS LLB-II BW ($100 or 4-$400 with UTP gear for CTers) at .02lux.
Right click, save as.
http://www.lowvoltageonline.com/Gallery/Ha...%20lowlight.wmv
Playback at 704x480, not fullscreen

(Yea I dunno why it's 1fps it was encoded at 15fps, the original is better quality but not in a codec you can play. So I hope you can play this but if ya can't... Sorry.)

What is this LVS LLB-II camera? I googled it but couldn't find it. Where do you buy it?

 

[tmbrown97]

sounds like a part number from his store: LVS. Check out www.lowvoltageonline.com