Buying advice: low light camera without IR or white LED

[ZjieB]

I am looking for an IP camera that is capable of recording video at night. I don’t want to use IR because of the visibility of the red glow and I don’t want auxillary LED lighting because I want the room to remain dark. There is some ambient lighting in the room. My current hikvision (with IR turned off) records video, but I can barely see anything.)

i know there are dahua’s with night color and starlights without IR’s and the hikvision colorvu’s. Does anyone have an idea what would be best?

 

[Jessie.slimer]

You can also turn the IR off in most if not all Dahuas, but if the room is completely dark you will not see much.

If you have some light, the cameras with 4mp on 1/1.8 sensors such as the 5442 seem to do ok. You will have to experiment to see if you have enough light to get a useful image when it is run without ir.

Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+

Dahua OEM IPC-T5442TM-AS from EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret AI Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk store: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price Approximately US $160 Link to camera...

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[Teken]

You may consider using 940 nm IR LED instead of the standard 850 nm IR LED that is more visible to the naked eye. You’ll need to select the correct 940 nm IR LED that either provides spot vs flood lighting for the environment and area coverage needed.

Keep in mind not all cameras will operate as well using 940 nm IR LED vs 850 nm. Other possible solutions are to use thermal imaging cameras which completely negates needing any light!

The problem with going that route is loosing the ability to identify real world colours of a object. If all you need to know is if someone or something is in that area thermal imaging is fantastic to see in pitch dark, fog, smoke, etc.

Good Luck . . .

 

[ZjieB]

The 940nm would be great if I could find a camera with those kind of leds embedded. An external illuminator is not preferred.

IThe regular cams don’t pick up enough light, that’s why I was looking into the low light models like starlight.

 

[Teken]

The 940nm would be great if I could find a camera with those kind of leds embedded. An external illuminator is not preferred.

IThe regular cams don’t pick up enough light, that’s why I was looking into the low light models like starlight.

There are not many none specialty cameras that use 940 nm IR LED’s. So your only choice is to use an external one with the FOV from spot to flood that meets your needs.

Going this route offers some benefits like better placement, area coverage, and stealth for the camera. Other considerations is to add more ambient lighting whether hardwired or solar powered.

Done correctly it increases curb appeal while offering more light for low light camera systems. I’ve done the same where I didn’t want the internal white LED to be seen drawing attention to that specific camera.

Whereas in other parts of the property I absolutely used them from 30-100% output as they provided perimeter lighting impossible to have.

Many ways to get somewhere but comes down to more money, time, resources, or compromise!

 

[ZjieB]

Sounds like a great solution, but cannot find an ip cam with 940 built in and I’d rather not use an external illuminator.This narrows it down to low light camera’s without IR or a camera that let’s me disable IR and still has some visibility. The room is not pitch black: there is a light burning in the hallway so we have a little bit of kux.

 

[wittaj]

In most instances, you want to get a camera that will perform at your location for the worse situation, which for most of us is at night when it is dark and there is little to no light. If a camera performs at night, it is easier to tweak settings to make it work during the day than it is the other way around.

Do not be sold by some trademarked night color vision (Full Color, ColorVu, Starlight, etc.) that is a marketing ploy in a lot of ways lol. It is simply what a manufacturer wants to claim for low-light performance, but there are so many games that can be played even with the how they report the spec numbers. They will claim a low lux of 0.001 for example, but then that is with a wide open iris and a shutter at 1/3 second and an f1.0 - as soon as you have motion in it, it will be crap. You need a shutter of at minimum 1/60 second to reduce a lot of blur from someone walking.

All cameras need light. Simple physics.

Check out this video at midnight. You see this and it looks like daytime and be like WOW I want that camera. But any motion in the frame and it is crap and will be a ghost blur. You notice they do not show anything with motion. I can make all my cameras look like this at midnight with no other light, but we want good motion video, not still images video. This is a very nice cameras with enough light at night but do we have enough light? All cameras, regardless of what they are called, need light - either white light or infrared. Simple physics. If you know what to look for, you can see clues likely indicating motion will be a complete motion-blur ghost.


While this camera is not what we would call a consumer grade camera and this is a really good camera, it is these games that the consumer grade cameras of the world do to their camera to make it look good at night - but then a person walking by is a blur and people simply say well the camera isn't good at night. If you have the ability to change the settings, you can make it work. Just remember that every increase in shutter speed needs more light. So I can set mine to 1/250 second and eliminate blur at night, but then all that is visible is a 5 foot diameter around the camera IF I have enough light. And most of us find that the LED white light on these cameras are useless.

You can find reviews here of people that put them in dark settings with no light (like you would have at 2am) and then the ColorVu would be useless to you. And you cannot add IR light because the camera will not see it...

If your camera doesn't have enough light, a 24/7 full color camera will not be of much good and now you have a camera with no IR and even if you added external IR, the camera will not see it since it does not have an IR filter. So unless you know you have enough light at night, you are better off to purchase one that has the ability to see IR just in case.

Here is a recent one where a member posted their situation and the poor quality of a 24/7 color camera with no light and no ability to see IR:

Initial review of the DS-2CD2347G2-L(U) ColorVu 2.0 IP camera.

What about adding some additional landscaping lighting - this cam is awesome and with minimal light will do great. External lightning will have new power cable and new installation, cost lot of time and extra money. Not everyone like light at night. So select a good cam is very important...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Teken]

Sounds like a great solution, but cannot find an ip cam with 940 built in and I’d rather not use an external illuminator.This narrows it down to low light camera’s without IR or a camera that let’s me disable IR and still has some visibility. The room is not pitch black: there is a light burning in the hallway so we have a little bit of kux.

Any camera that offers extreme low light image capture still needs to balance static vs moving. As the other member noted not hard to see in almost pitch black when the object isn’t moving.

The same can’t be said when it moves even slowly. Cameras that offer both costs more than you can afford to pay.

Think $1-3000.00 dollars just to have the privilege of seeing a moving object near complete darkness. You’ve never stated what level of imaging you need so if you just want to see a blur you can install and buy anything.

You won’t compromise on using and deploying an externally mounted 940 nm IR LED that would surely offer clear B&W object detection. You won’t consider adding auxiliary lighting to help a low light camera to reduce motion blur all the while offering you that possible money shot.

So it goes without saying you’re not going to spend the money on a specialty camera that costs 1-3K!

If money can solve a problem - You don’t have a problem. When money can’t solve a problem - You have a serious problem!

 

[ZjieB]

I get your points. I understand there has to be some kind of light for the camera to pick up.

in my case:I sleep in the room the camera is in. When I’m not at home (during night or daytime) the camera also records. I put the camera there, because I think a burglar’s best chance is to enter my home at the back of the house via the balcony which is attached to this room. (I also have other systems in place to prevent a burglar in getting there.)

So that’s why I don’t want an auxillary white light and I don’t want to stare in the red glow of the regular camera.

That’s why I was wondering if there are low light camera’s that actually can record motion (without blurring everything) at some degree.

But if there aren’t any that can do a decent job, then mounting an external 940nm illuminator is the only option. Two problems:

• I think my current camera (Hikvision 2CD2443G0–IW can’t pick up 940?
• are there any 940 illuminators out there, that work and are not too big (the camera is inside my room)?

 

[wittaj]

Depending on your system, you may be able to have a command ran to turn the IR on only after another internal camera has sensed motion? Something like that can be done in Blue Iris for example.

 

[ZjieB]

I’m on synology surveillance station and I could run commands when some motion sensors are triggered, but don’t want to wake up when the camera’s IR is clicking when it turns on when a cat walks by outside.

 

[Teken]

I get your points. I understand there has to be some kind of light for the camera to pick up.

in my case:I sleep in the room the camera is in. When I’m not at home (during night or daytime) the camera also records. I put the camera there, because I think a burglar’s best chance is to enter my home at the back of the house via the balcony which is attached to this room. (I also have other systems in place to prevent a burglar in getting there.)

So that’s why I don’t want an auxillary white light and I don’t want to stare in the red glow of the regular camera.

That’s why I was wondering if there are low light camera’s that actually can record motion (without blurring everything) at some degree.

But if there aren’t any that can do a decent job, then mounting an external 940nm illuminator is the only option. Two problems:

• I think my current camera (Hikvision 2CD2443G0–IW can’t pick up 940?
• are there any 940 illuminators out there, that work and are not too big (the camera is inside my room)?

Generally speaking any camera that incorporates IR can see 950 nm IR. Whether it can see well is completely different and only real world trial and error will prove it works.

Keep in mind in a small enclosed space it’s going to work.

This comes back to selecting between spot vs flood. Depending upon the distance, placement, and the power output both types in a small room will be lit up like a rock concert!

Shop around for a size, LED count, beam pattern that suites your needs. Given there are so many throw away brands out there buy a few and play with some that meets your needs and return the rest via Amazon!

 

[Left Coast Geek]

standard CMOS sensors are not very sensitive to 940+ nm IR. I have a trail camera behind my house, aimed along a fence line thats a wildlife trail, I get cougars, bobcats, coyotes, and tons of blacktail deer. it uses 950mm IR and its illuminators are invisible to my eyes, not even dim red from 10 feet away. Its not online, it records to an SD card that I pull about once a month and review looking for interesting clips.

 

[ZjieB]

I ordered a Dahua 5442. I am hoping this camera needs less light than my current hikvision. With a 1/1.8 sensor it should do better than the 1/3 sensor of my current camera.
Let’s find out if playing with shutter speeds can give me a decent image…