IR illuminator

G

GKyle840

Young grasshopper
Dec 18, 2018
93
18
Ohio
I am planning to buy an external IR illuminator and was wondering if anyone had purchased this unit before from amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Univivi-Illuminator-Infrared-Security-Cameras/dp/B075F7NV56/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1547595800&sr=1-3&keywords=ir+illuminator+90&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_72:1248879011

I am looking for something that doesnt have a hotspot and it should only need to go around 60 feet or so.
I was thinking of either mounting it a few feet away from the camera or on the 2nd story of the house about 6 feet above the camera and off to the side.
 
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I'm using a Univivi 6-led illuminator and it has a pretty significant hotspot. In another location I'm using dual 4-led illuminators aimed so the hotspots are spread out a little. Of of my dozen or so external illuminators, this setup gives the most even and widest coverage. I posted some info in another thread, which unfortunately didn't include the Univivi 4 watt IR illuminator comparison
 
here is a photo of the new light. when the weather improves and I get my 2nd light I will do a comparison of them in the back yard in complete darkness. this is all I have for now. it has less of a hotspot than the light in the camera but thats about all I can tell with the snow right now.
 

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GKyle840 said:
it has less of a hotspot than the light in the camera but thats about all I can tell with the snow right now.
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Even the worst IR illuminator I've tried has a "less bad" hotspot than any of my cameras.
 
I tested my 2 IR lights tonight and these were the only pictures I was able to capture due to the kids.
picture 1 is this light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075F7NV56/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
picture 2 is this light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTXSJP9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

its hard to tell from the pictures but light one is brighter and has a bit wider angle to the beam.
the other thing I noticed is light 1 is IP67 rated and light2 is IP65 rated so im not sure how much of the weather light 2 will be able to withstand.
I plan to test them in a few locations I am thinking of mounting them over the next few days.
 

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GKyle840 said:
I tested my 2 IR lights tonight and these were the only pictures I was able to capture due to the kids.
picture 1 is this light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075F7NV56/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
picture 2 is this light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTXSJP9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

its hard to tell from the pictures but light one is brighter and has a bit wider angle to the beam.
the other thing I noticed is light 1 is IP67 rated and light2 is IP65 rated so im not sure how much of the weather light 2 will be able to withstand.
I plan to test them in a few locations I am thinking of mounting them over the next few days.
Click to expand...
The snow will skew the results. You will need to wait for it to melt to get a real idea.
 
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I agree with the snow interfering with a good comparison. With the snow pictures I'm guessing that the first light has a much more pronounced hotspot which leads to the camera cutting down the exposure, making the peripheral areas look darker even though there could actually be more light. When I evaluated IR lights I used manual exposure settings thinking this gave a more realistic comparison. I never caught the IP65 rating for the CM40, assuming all of them were IP67. Reading the rating definitions I'd guess IP65 should withstand any typical weather. I have about a half dozen of them outside and haven't had any issues, but I'd definitely feel more secure with IP67. I just looked at the box for a similar Tendelux AI4 illuminator and it also says IP65, surprising me again.
 
If only these cameras had more sophisticated auto exposure systems and settings. Ideally, they would do a better analysis of the histogram and allow you to set thresholds of percent of the histogram to ignore.

With the right algorithms, you could have the analysis realize that large areas of snow do not need to be simply averaged to an overall 18% gray level, but instead see that the large percentage of the histogram that is white should still be adjusted up to a white level. That would be done by weighting the small areas of non-snow higher, so that you get reasonable exposure of the non-snow objects.

That sort of auto exposure system will likely come in time to the security camera world. But none of my existing security cameras have it. Canon's attempt at this in their DSLRs and MILCs is called "evaluative" metering mode. It's not perfect, but it is far better than what is available in the security cameras I'm running.

Snow fools every security camera in my system, and it wouldn't need to be that way. This isn't exactly rocket science these days.

Edit to add: Photoshop's "Auto" mode available when converting RAW files is another example of this sort of analysis and processing. Just push the high end up to the top, no matter how much percentage of the image area that represents.

Edit to add still more: I have actually come to the conclusion that I prefer just adding more always-on visible "white" light, and keep the cameras in color mode. But I need more Starlight cams, too. ;)
 
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