not to take over this thread, but to add another thought to lighting and color vs IR/BW. The one relies solely on light being present, which is fine, but what is the trade-off and thinking. Is IR/BW configured, tweaked and set to auto for those cases the light might get turned off? Setting the light to a timer is good, but there are the inevitable times that the light doesnt turn on or it gets turned off, so you need to not lose footage, so in these cases is it enough to rely on the camera to auto switch to night mode? While lighting is different, it would seem like a bad idea to configure night mode to be good with the lights on, because in the event the lights go out, then you lose video, so instead, day time mode should handle day and night conditions no? Or is it a strong, make sure the freaking lights are on?
I made note to the wife that we will start keeping the front lights on and when I explained she was cool with it, but still, I can see them occasionally getting turned off. It is way freaking better with them on. the color footage almost beats the day time footage.