Best type of lighting for Starlight cameras

[Katodude]

So I am going to get 3 of the new Starlight turrents to cover my driveway. I am also installing a bunch of lights around the house and plan on lighting up the driveway pretty well. I have had a rash of breakins on my wife's car and I want it to stop or at least be able the identity the culprits.

So I have a few questions. I am going to be mounting the cameras under a soffit and I read somewhere that the IR might bounce back and create glare. I am assuming that I can turn off the IR if this happens.

Also is there a color spectrum that I should be using for the LED bulbs that will give me the best image. I.e. 5000K or 2700K.

Finally I believe that I read somewhere not to install lights on a motion sensor. Is that the case or should I add an additional REALLY bright light on a motion sensor?

 

[zero-degrees]

Finally I believe that I read somewhere not to install lights on a motion sensor. Is that the case or should I add an additional REALLY bright light on a motion sensor?

Going from no light to bright light can kick a camera from IR mode to day mode. If there is action occuring during this switch you can sometimes miss something important. If you want to light the area of coverage but also detect movement you can look at a dual brightness light/bulb. I installed a few of these at my grandparents place. Basically you have lighter night time lighting but on motion the lights ramp up to super bright for X period/time.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about - Two Level Lighting - this isn't the exact model I used but it's like it.
Shop Secure Home 240-Degree 2-Head Dual Detection Zone White Halogen Motion-Activated Flood Light with Timer at Lowes.com

 

[zero-degrees]

Finally I believe that I read somewhere not to install lights on a motion sensor. Is that the case or should I add an additional REALLY bright light on a motion sensor?

Going from no light to bright light can kick a camera from IR mode to day mode. If there is action occuring during this switch you can sometimes miss something important. If you want to light the area of coverage but also detect movement you can look at a dual brightness light/bulb. I installed a few of these at my grandparents place. Basically you have lighter night time lighting but on motion the lights ramp up to super bright for X period/time.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about - Two Level Lighting - this isn't the exact model I used but it's like it.
Shop Secure Home 240-Degree 2-Head Dual Detection Zone White Halogen Motion-Activated Flood Light with Timer at Lowes.com

 

[j4co]

perhaps share the layout of house and surrounding and indicate where you plan to set things up ?

 

[fenderman]

2700.. Daylight looks stupid...Leave them on all night on a Honeywell location based timer...

 

[Katodude]

I plan on leaving them on all night, I will have them attached to my Insteon system so they can turn on at dusk and off at dawn. Just wanted to know if the camera reacts better to one type of light or not.

Also is it appropriate for me to post a layout of the driveway here as j4co suggests?

 

[looney2ns]

I plan on leaving them on all night, I will have them attached to my Insteon system so they can turn on at dusk and off at dawn. Just wanted to know if the camera reacts better to one type of light or not.

Also is it appropriate for me to post a layout of the driveway here as j4co suggests?

Yes, post away.

 

[j4co]

I think that if you post layout around the driveway that members here can give you good info where the camera's best mounting position is.

I did that for sensors, and got some good advice. I have drawings from the new house, and will post them also with intended camera positions and ir units and sensors. This to get multiple ideas what might be best for what reasons people have to avoid issues later on.
I will need to have this info clear so the builder install conduit though the wall to the positions where i install the mounting frames.

 

[Katodude]

Ok well here goes. The red rectangle is my wife's car. The green lines are where I want to put my cameras. The Purple lines are additional spotlights in addition to the sconces by the entrance of the driveway and beside each of the the garage doors, and additional lights over the porch. The upper left hand corner is yard area that is adjacent to the street where we think the criminals com in from. Just left of the driveway is a three car garage, that is full of my wife's Christmas decorations or we could park the car indoors and I would not have this problem (but lets not get into that here). I am also thinking of putting a HUGE IR illuminator in the right yard mounted on an oak tree in the upper right hand side of the yard aimed at the car. I have full 120v there. Alright lets tear my design apart and tell me what I need to do.

 

[Dodutils]

About IR illuminator, I don't know if you want your camera do trigger alert video record at night but in that case try to avoid cameras with IR included use independant IR light a few step away because at night it may attract many flying bugs that see/feel IR light.

 

[fenderman]

About IR illuminator, I don't know if you want your camera do trigger alert video record at night but in that case try to avoid cameras with IR included use independant IR light a few step away because at night it may attract many flying bugs that see/feel IR light.

this is NOT a problem with turret cameras...you simply need to buy proper cameras and will not have this issue. Some folks dont want to have addition ir fixtures that look ugly...The OP is also adding actual light which is the BEST option so you get a nice color image with no issue with IR washout.

 

[Dodutils]

this is NOT a problem with turret cameras...you simply need to buy proper cameras and will not have this issue. Some folks dont want to have addition ir fixtures that look ugly...The OP is also adding actual light which is the BEST option so you get a nice color image with no issue with IR washout.

An other problem of having IR inside camera is when you get some tiny threads in front of camera that will reflect a lot with IR until you clean it but if it appear during the day (not visible) it will produce a lot of false alarms/records.

But you are tru when you say it also depend on the camera, some sensors have lower shutter speed than other that produce those flying bugs washout.

 

[nayr]

recording only based off video motion processing is for chumps.. hdd's are cheap as fuck.. record 24/7/365 @ max quality and the spiders will just pollute your timeline.

alarms/alerts off video outdoors is even worse; but the Starlight cameras come with IVS features to help with that.

 

[Dodutils]

recording only based off video motion processing is for chumps.. hdd's are cheap as fuck.. record 24/7/365 @ max quality and the spiders will just pollute your timeline.

alarms/alerts off video outdoors is even worse; but the Starlight cameras come with IVS features to help with that.

First of all it is not because some people do motion alert based record that it's crap and also whenever HDD is cheap it mean one more equipment at home running power 24/24 7/7 but may be you don't care about saving some energy power usage, all depend about user's needs some of them may need 24/24 record some other may not.

And polluting timeline mean you'll have to review it all to check if some guy moved into your garden and that is huge waste of time.

And by the way I used motion detection on a project for 10 years and it was fine, of course a lot of false alarms but it was much faster to review than an entire 24/24 record (because I had to check all camer's activity each day so I know what I am talking about), but on some other projects 24/24 record was fine too so as I said you have to have open minded position and think about the user's requirements before telling "motion based record is not good".

 

[nayr]

Only if your OCD enough to constantly review footage; Most people only open there NVR and review footage a few times a year; when something actually goes missing or something happens.

If you tune out false alarms the chances are you will have absolutely no video of a security related event.. Bunch of gunshots occurred outside my house earlier this year; cameras recorded it all but the vast majority of activity occurred out of frame and the audio pickup was the most valuable.

Even if your recording locally to SD card, you can get many days of non-stop recording on a 128GB sd.. if you require more capacity than that then you require a HDD.

 

[zero-degrees]

And when your motion fails to detect and you capture nothing prior to someone kicking your door in you then try and kick your own ass...

I understand everyone has an opinion, but I also don't understand WHY anyone would want only motion based recording, so much can be missed. For example, earlier this summer we had the grass across the street destroyed by a semi that was delivering something in the neighborhood. A quick review of my driveway camera and front yard camera and I had the semi doing the damage clear as day - name and contact on the drivers door no problem. If I had motion based recording setup I would have never got any of it, wouldn't have been able to send it to our property management company, and it most likely wouldn't have been fixed a week later at no cost to the association.

I have a rolling month+ typically (just under 5 weeks) of 7 cameras recording 24/7. I don't ever go reviewing footage unless I need to because I notice something

 

[Dodutils]

Only if your OCD enough to constantly review footage; Most people only open there NVR and review footage a few times a year; when something actually goes missing or something happens.

If you tune out false alarms the chances are you will have absolutely no video of a security related event.. Bunch of gunshots occurred outside my house earlier this year; cameras recorded it all but the vast majority of activity occurred out of frame and the audio pickup was the most valuable.

Even if your recording locally to SD card, you can get many days of non-stop recording on a 128GB sd.. if you require more capacity than that then you require a HDD.

I update my previous post before seing your answer but this confirm what I said "all depends of user's goal of Video surveillance".

 

[nayr]

I update my previous post before seing your answer but this confirm what I said "all depends of user's goal of Video surveillance".

Everyone's goal is to record video for security purposes; all your cameras are not worth a fucking thing if they missed what they were installed for.. as I said; Only chumps operate in such a manner.. glad it works for you; but your advice is unsound and not recommended.

 

[fenderman]

An other problem of having IR inside camera is when you get some tiny threads in front of camera that will reflect a lot with IR until you clean it but if it appear during the day (not visible) it will produce a lot of false alarms/records.

But you are tru when you say it also depend on the camera, some sensors have lower shutter speed than other that produce those flying bugs washout.

Once again, this is a non issue for turret style cameras...you are buying the wrong design. On a turret camera the IR and the lens are already separate.

 

[Dodutils]

And when your motion fails to detect and you capture nothing prior to someone kicking your door in you then try and kick your own ass...

I understand everyone has an opinion, but I also don't understand WHY anyone would want only motion based recording, so much can be missed. For example, earlier this summer we had the grass across the street destroyed by a semi that was delivering something in the neighborhood. A quick review of my driveway camera and front yard camera and I had the semi doing the damage clear as day - name and contact on the drivers door no problem. If I had motion based recording setup I would have never got any of it, wouldn't have been able to send it to our property management company, and it most likely wouldn't have been fixed a week later at no cost to the association.

Let me give you a very personnal example, for 10 years I had to check people in/out at my Grand mother's house especially for workers (is this right word in english ?) how came every day to make her eat and wash.

So I had to count each time they come in/out and also how long they spent at home and for this the motion recording was fine and rarely missed an in or out (but yes it happened), I also developped my own "fast video review" tool, very optimized to do a monthly check/report with semi-automatic sorting (using auto x10 time play speed, keyboard shortcuts for deleting or moving each video to dedicated worker's folder (key 0-9 as I never had more than 10 different workers) and adding a "in" or "out" at the end of video's filename, so the time each one spent at home could be automatically calculted by an other software I developped on purpose and then double check with the company's bill, very usefull and permitted to detect some workers that did not wrote the correct timing (whenever they knew about the camera that's weird).