I am designing/buying my first security system.
I notice no one talks about floodlights included with cameras much.
Is that because there aren't very many good ones.
Suggestions on dedicated floodlights would be appreciated as well.
Lastly, what about placement if I purchase separately.
Please see the Cliff Notes. A lot of your questions will be answered by a good read of that stuff.
Personally I have not used flood lights with cameras. If you are talking about motion activated ones, they are usually discouraged since most cameras take a while to adjust to the sudden appearance of high light.
The problem with floodlight cameras is that when the floodlight is triggered the camera is blinded for, typically, at least a few seconds as the gain is automatically adjusted by the camera. If the camera additionally switches into "day" (color) mode that time is increased significantly. Murphy says that while the camera is blinded will be just the time you need to actually have a good image. The same thing happens with floodlights triggered by a PIR sensor.
The latest crop of low light cameras are capable of full color with very limited light. Search for the Dahua 5442 series. If you use them with always on flood lights you'll have no blinding of the camera, full color all the time and can use very little floodlighting.
Thank you for your suggestions.
I did read about the delay on the cameras in the cliffs. I thought there may be one designed like the "Ring floodlight camera" that seems to adjust in some way.
All on all the time seems like the answer!
Do you guys use floods on most of your cameras? Any brand suggestions?
I use the built in PIR on the camera or external illuminators rather than floodlights. As far as Ring goes, good luck with that stuff, consumer grade doesn't provide acceptable video no matter what they may claim plus it's cloud based I believe.
As far as brands, Dahua and Hikvision both have good low light capable cameras. Also check the IPCT store on this forum and Nelly's security.
Hi sebastiantombs,
Thank you for the response. I wasn't a c t u a l l y thinking of getting Ring just an example of a floodlight camera!
What a do you mean by "external illuminators"?
Being a novice I always heard that floodlights are important.
I don't see a problem with buying a camera with built in visible light.
It's curiosity to trial out, if it doesn't work then disable the light.
The reason to chose a camera with a built in light is for cleanliness and running off one PoE port.
I don't mind wiring a light next to the camera, but some chose an all-in-one solution.
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I guess the basic question is why you're looking at floodlight cameras. Do you want full color at night or just to "spotlight" miscreants or light up the area?
