Great nightvision cam, or floods?

[Caminator]

Kind of curious what the conventional wisdom is on nighttime surveillance. It seems even the best IR cam tech falls short of even a small light source. Just the streetlight in front of my house seems to make a huge difference at night vs my backyard with no light (disclaimer: Cheap Wyze cams for now). So should I be planning a cam system around motion-activated floods, rather than obsessing on the most powerful/expensive night vision cams? Or are they not mutually exclusive? (do floods in some way make the nightvision less clear?).

I guess part of it is the philosophical debate of stealth cams to surreptitiously catch thief, vs the deterrent value of lights popping on and scaring the cockroaches to at least try a darker house?

 

[looney2ns]

Kind of curious what the conventional wisdom is on nighttime surveillance. It seems even the best IR cam tech falls short of even a small light source. Just the streetlight in front of my house seems to make a huge difference at night vs my backyard with no light (disclaimer: Cheap Wyze cams for now). So should I be planning a cam system around motion-activated floods, rather than obsessing on the most powerful/expensive night vision cams? Or are they not mutually exclusive? (do floods in some way make the nightvision less clear?).

I guess part of it is the philosophical debate of stealth cams to surreptitiously catch thief, vs the deterrent value of lights popping on and scaring the cockroaches to at least try a darker house?

Welcome,
Many very good night vision cams, Wyze isn't one of them to judge by.
On a real computer study this: Cliff Notes
And read the many reviews of cams that are posted on here.
Avoid, Wifi cams, cloud based, Reolink, Wyze, Nest, Ring, Arlo, etc.
You will find that a lot of thieves don't care about lights coming on, this is evidenced by the many security videos that are posted.

 

[CCTVCam]

There are issues surrounding both - namely colour is better for recognition, lighting can be result in delays in the camera adjusting to the sudden change in light. Personally, I fall more in the colour camp. However, then it comes down to your cameras light reaction time and where and how the floodlighting is triggered so as to take into account any delay. Even if using colour, there are advantages to having a good low light response, namely being able to see stuff before the lighting comes on.

As Looney says, reading the cliff notes is a good start.

 

[samplenhold]

Another aspect to consider is the placement of the lights to the camera with respect to where the intruder would be standing/moving. If the intruder is between the lights and the camera then getting a good face ID will be problematic. The face will be in shadow. If possible, opt for good continuous after dark lighting placed in a position to throw light on the face.