IR LED light / Illuminator for outdoor use

nzipcamera

nzipcamera

Getting the hang of it
Jun 6, 2014
218
75
New Zealand
Hi,
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good quality, high power outdoor IR LED light?

It needs to be bright (maybe 50 - 100w) and have a wide field of view (around 70 degrees) and be the 850nm wave length.

Seems to be a lots of cheap and nasty looking ones on Ali, Ebay and Amazon it's hard to work out which ones will last and or have a decent light output.

Any info, recommendations or what to look for in a new IR LED light world be great.

Thanks
 
I'd love to give one of the lower power models a try, but sadly the shipping cost for 1 item nearly doubles the overall cost of the transaction. It's a shame they don't have cheaper (slower) options for shipping. The shipping weight of the one I'm looking at is on 1kg...
 
atom said:
I'd love to give one of the lower power models a try, but sadly the shipping cost for 1 item nearly doubles the overall cost of the transaction. It's a shame they don't have cheaper (slower) options for shipping. The shipping weight of the one I'm looking at is on 1kg...
Click to expand...

They would be making more profit on freight than on the light at that freight price:). Will they not use China Post or Singapore Post with a logging number?
 
nzipcamera said:
Hi,
It needs to be bright (maybe 50 - 100w) and have a wide field of view (around 70 degrees) and be the 850nm wave length.
Click to expand...

That's a big illuminator. You run the risk of over exposing your closer subjects if you are doing both short and long range observation with the same cameras

nzipcamera said:
They would be making more profit on freight than on the light at that freight price:). Will they not use China Post or Singapore Post with a logging number?
Click to expand...

I think that is a bit of a scam across aliexpress and ebay to make the item appear cheaper. You can get it for $100 with free delivery, or for $20 with $80 delivery.
 
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SyconsciousAu said:
That's a big illuminator. You run the risk of over exposing your closer subjects if you are doing both short and long range observation with the same cameras
Click to expand...

What size do you suggest? The area I'm wanting to cover is about 30 x 40m square.


SyconsciousAu said:
I think that is a bit of a scam across aliexpress and ebay to make the item appear cheaper. You can get it for $100 with free delivery, or for $20 with $80 delivery.
Click to expand...

I think you could be right to some extent. But as I understand it they do this for a number of reasons 1)the listing shows up as a "New listing" so it goes to the top of the listings and buyers get notified of new listings. 2) Its a good way to have the same product listed twice. So you're more likely to see it. 3) It makes there product look cheaper than their competitor so you are more likely to click on it.

A lot of the freight coming out of China I understand is subsidized by government. I think I've read somewhere that small packages under 2kg can sometimes be free. Don't know if that true or not.
 
nzipcamera said:
What size do you suggest? The area I'm wanting to cover is about 30 x 40m square.
Click to expand...

I wish it was that easy. The "right" illuminator will depend on a lot of things other than just output power. Camera, lens, and mounting position of the illuminator in relation to the camera all change things, as does what you want to achieve.

The biggest difficulty with illumination is evening it out across the scene.


Have a read of that page for a bit of a primer on how it all works.
 
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nzipcamera said:
Thanks for the link that was very helpful. The site offers a excellent explanation to the problem.

Do you have any more links like that? That one was gold.
Click to expand...

http://www.idealcctv.co.uk/lux-agc-shutter-speed-cctv-camera-minimum-scene-illumination

Here is another good one on lighting and minimum illumination. Can help a lot in making your calculations for lighting, if, you can get the complete data sheet for the camera you are using.

If you can't, which is often the case, consider substituting with a number which assumes the camera is a poor performer in that area. If the camera performs better than that and you have calculated more light than you actually need it isn't an issue.

That link is a good one because you start to see that things like claims of illumination are made on the proviso the lens is F1.2, when the lens that comes with the camera is F2.0, and you already have to multiply your minimum illumination x 3.
 
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