IR Illumination - PoE

I have a slew of these at this point...outside and long range:
THIS ONE

Best I have found. The HIGHER you can mount any of them the better. Less hot spots. If you have to mount it low, angle it up to feather the light out.

Im happy with the Tendelux brand stuff. I have a small one and a Big one both work as advertised and dont seem to have a hot spot..

80 ft AI4
200 ft BI18

I have two of the Tendalux as well, and happy with them both.

Thanks!

I purchased a couple of the 80ft and 200ft Tendelux IR illuminators thank you @bigredfish and @looney2ns

As this is my first time using these I am not sure where to mount them. Do they need to be mounted near the camera, or can they be mounted a bit away from the camera where the camera's inbuilt IR does not reach?

For example, if I have a camera on my outdoor patio, mounted about 10 ft high.

The camera IR and other background light presents a reasonable night time image for 60% of the patio, but not all of it.

In such a case, where does one place the IR illuminator? Near the camera, or at the other side closer to the dark spots?

I guess another way to ask the question is, Like a regular bulb, does the IR illuminator actually 'throw' some form of light, but in this case it is just not visible o the human eye?

I hope this is clear. Advice please?

Thanks

You do not need to mount the IR light near the camera. If it's not right at the camera, you will have a bunch of dark shadows which may or may not be acceptable. When not at the camera, you don't attract bugs and spiders to the lens, and the camera can actually be useful during rain and snow. (When using the built-in IR, rain and snow reflect back and effectively blind the camera). I shut off the camera's IR lights to keep the spiders away. The only place I've found where the IR light needs to be right at the camera is for reading license plates at night. The light reflected from the plates returns to the source, and if the IR light isn't near the camera lens, the car's own lighting totally overwhelms the little bit of IR illuminating the license plate. The IR illuminator does "throw" light. All you can see is a faint red glow from the illuminator. I posted some pictures of IR illuminators shining against a garage door here 4 watt IR illuminator comparison

alwayson said:

I purchased a couple of the 80ft and 200ft Tendelux IR illuminators thank you @bigredfish and @looney2ns

As this is my first time using these I am not sure where to mount them. Do they need to be mounted near the camera, or can they be mounted a bit away from the camera where the camera's inbuilt IR does not reach?

For example, if I have a camera on my outdoor patio, mounted about 10 ft high.

The camera IR and other background light presents a reasonable night time image for 60% of the patio, but not all of it.

In such a case, where does one place the IR illuminator? Near the camera, or at the other side closer to the dark spots?

I guess another way to ask the question is, Like a regular bulb, does the IR illuminator actually 'throw' some form of light, but in this case it is just not visible o the human eye?

I hope this is clear. Advice please?

Thanks

Click to expand...

If your only goal is to even-out the brightness of the illumination, then mounting and/or aiming the auxiliary illuminators to fill in the dark areas not served by the camera's built-in illuminator makes sense.

However, as @tigerwillow1 and others mention, one great advantage to an external illuminator or illuminators is to get the light source well away from the camera so that you are not plagued by spiders and so the camera isn't useless in rain, snow, or blowing dust.

When the light source is built into the camera, the light comes from almost the same place as the camera's lens. And that means that even tiny particles of dust, rain, or snow, or spider webs and the like that are near the camera will be very brightly illuminated and show up bright and big in the images.

All of that can render the camera virtually useless a lot of the time. We get quite a bit of wind here, not to mention snow and rain. The dust that inevitably blows on the wind, as well as snow and rain, can make it impossible to use most motion detection. And spider webs are a constant plague, requiring cleaning of the afflicted cameras several times every night, and triggering motion detection constantly between cleanings.

So setting up good "off-camera" illumination and switching off any in-camera illumination is a huge advantage, not only to get better coverage of the desired area, but also to avoid the problems mentioned above.

The LED illuminators work just like a visible light. You just cannot see the light with your naked eye. That means that adjusting their aim is easiest to do at night using a smart phone app to let you see what the camera is seeing in real-time.

I prefer having at least two illuminators for each camera location to get even lighting and fill in shadows while still keeping the illuminators away from the cameras themselves.

And unless you need to comply with some HOA restrictions, or need to have darkness to the human eye, remember that plain visible light sources can let you have good illumination and run the cameras in color mode all night. And the light may serve as a deterrent as well. Plain white LED lights can be every bit as power efficient as IR illuminators, if not more so. The cameras may require brighter light to perform well in color mode, but its worth exploring.

tigerwillow1 said:

You do not need to mount the IR light near the camera. If it's not right at the camera, you will have a bunch of dark shadows which may or may not be acceptable. When not at the camera, you don't attract bugs and spiders to the lens, and the camera can actually be useful during rain and snow. (When using the built-in IR, rain and snow reflect back and effectively blind the camera). I shut off the camera's IR lights to keep the spiders away. The only place I've found where the IR light needs to be right at the camera is for reading license plates at night. The light reflected from the plates returns to the source, and if the IR light isn't near the camera lens, the car's own lighting totally overwhelms the little bit of IR illuminating the license plate. The IR illuminator does "throw" light. All you can see is a faint red glow from the illuminator. I posted some pictures of IR illuminators shining against a garage door here 4 watt IR illuminator comparison

Click to expand...

Excellent post!

The license plate reading application really would be where you'd want the IR illuminator right at the camera lens! Great point.

And thank you for the testing of the various illuminators. Very helpful. It shows why you may well want several illuminators no matter which model you buy if you want even illumination over a wide area.

Every camera I have produces a very bad hot spot when using the built-in illuminator by itself, and they all become useless when it rains or snows, or the wind blows when using the built-in illumination.

I'm not saying built-in illuminators are completely useless. But they're pretty close in an outdoor situation.

I've got a small Vario unit by Raytec. I tried many cheaper units but none ultimately worked well or lasted. The Raytec unit distributes the IR evenly so faces are nicely exposed. My unit is still working well after about 4-5 years. Be prepared to pay $$$ however.

alwayson said:

I purchased a couple of the 80ft and 200ft Tendelux IR illuminators thank you @bigredfish and @looney2ns

As this is my first time using these I am not sure where to mount them. Do they need to be mounted near the camera, or can they be mounted a bit away from the camera where the camera's inbuilt IR does not reach?

For example, if I have a camera on my outdoor patio, mounted about 10 ft high.

The camera IR and other background light presents a reasonable night time image for 60% of the patio, but not all of it.

In such a case, where does one place the IR illuminator? Near the camera, or at the other side closer to the dark spots?

I guess another way to ask the question is, Like a regular bulb, does the IR illuminator actually 'throw' some form of light, but in this case it is just not visible o the human eye?

I hope this is clear. Advice please?

Thanks

Click to expand...

It's best to experiment to see what works best in your situation. I'm using one of the Tendalux illuminators with my 5231ze, and found that it works well mounted off to the side about a foot, and 2 feet above the camera. I've turned off the IR in the camera, because of the blindness issues at times.
5gal bucket, rocks, and a 2x4 makes a good portable test rig.