Choosing an IR illuminator

[camsmith]

Is having too much IR illumination as bad as too little? For the purposes of nighttime facial ID would having too much IR give a washed out or overexposed face and therefore no detail?
I really don't need more than 50 feet of IR illumination.

 

[nayr]

too much IR and you just increase shutter speed and lower gain, it'll give you a more detailed image.. and wont overexpose.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Do what nayr said and you can also aim your illuminator a bit OVER the center of the scene and illuminate more in the distance which will balance out the exposure while still adding light to the center. That depends on the throw pattern of the illuminator and the scene. All scenes are a bit different and some cameras don't have an easy way to shorten the nighttime max exposure speeds so YMMV.

You'll see a TON of videos with washed out faces at night because of cams with narrow spotlights of built-in IR. When the subject comes close they catch almost ALL the IR, which immediately whitens them and steals the light from everything else in the scene which makes the imbalance even worse. Try to avoid that by adding an external illuminator. A wide angle one is usually better than a spotlight, particularly if you're matching it to a 4mm or 2.8mm lens.

 

[camsmith]

Thanks, I wonder if there is a list of cameras that have wide angle illuminators. I say this because if I'm going to spend $100.00 on an illuminator I might as well buy another camera that has a wide angle IR Illuminator.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Hik EXIR cameras have wide IR. Not great in the dark anyway but their IR is even. Just about anything with a circle of small IRs is bad.

 

[nayr]

a $100 illuminator will work much better than any built into a $100 camera.. a good camera paired with a nice powerful external illuminator can get you an image that performs at night nearly as well, or better than as a $400 Darkflighter/Starlight camera.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Yep. The best way to get a camera to perform well in the dark is to make it not BE dark. Add light, IR or white according to what you want. Some folks like it dark, so add IR. If you don't mind being lit up, add white light. Then spend as much per camera as your pain tolerance can stand if you don't like what the cheap ones show you.

 

[camsmith]

Ok, got it. I'm on the lookout for wide angle IR illuminators.