LED Floodlight Placement?

J

JetG

Getting the hang of it
Aug 24, 2016
107
29
I bought a LE 100w LED flood light, and cannot decide on placement. Wondering if I should place it on the house or on the camera pole under the cameras?

Not sure what I should do, anyone have experience with this?

Thanks
Jet
 
Sounds bright.

Ideally you want it close to cameras so you are more likely to be illuminating the side of things that the camera sees and not creating excessive shadows in the camera's view.
 
This is my garage. I put all the cameras and IR illuminator near each other, and also near the previously existing motion sensor floodlight. Also notable here is that lower mounted cameras don't have as much trouble with icicles growing in front of them. These are all too high to really avoid icicles :(

 
Oh, and one argument in favor of mounting the light further away is that rain/snow/fog/insects won't be as bright in the camera if strong light sources are further away.
 
I find that with the light a few feet away from the camera, the insects (and the spiderwebs that follow them) don't interfere much with the camera view, but it's still close enough so the illumination is almost the same as right next to the camera, for reasonable distances anyway. You can always get more even illumination if you have more than one light, with some significant distance between them. The opposite extreme, a string of small holiday lights along the entire edge of the house gives a very even illumination!
 
Something to consider is the ability to read a license plate at night.

Camera with built-in IR causes the lic plate to be very, very bright. Reading the plate is impossible, due to reflected IR.
Turning off the cam's IR, and placing an IR illuminator offset from the camera reduces the reflected light from the plate.

You could park a car in the relevant spot in the FOV, and move the IR light around while observing the video. Check for shadows and license plate legibility. I use something like this for optimizing the location of cam and light. https://www.amazon.com/Bayco-LBC-600SDLB-11-Feet-Light-Changer/dp/B001AH7CU8/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1481138566&sr=8-6&keywords=extension+pole+for+light+bulbs
 
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Attached is the example of pole location.. I have a 14' Sche 40, 4" OD steel pipe that will be located in the pic.

As of right now I have the following to install:

LE light...

LE 100W Super Bright Outdoor LED Flood Lights, 250W HPS Bulb Equivalent, Waterproof IP65, 10150lm, Daylight White, 6000K, Security Lights, Floodlight, 5 Years Warrenty - - Amazon.com



NVR5216-16P-4KS2 Quantity 1
SD59230U-HNI Quantity 2 (STARLIGHT PTZ 2 MP PTZ)
IPC-HFW5220E-Z Quantity 2

6TB Purple HD

2 PFA 120/121 (Junction Box for cameras)
2 PFA 150 for PTZ pole mounts
1 PFA 152 for one of the fixed cameras on the pole and locate the other looking across the other way from the front door area.

I would think with the pole 3' deep that is 11' above ground. so put the light say 9' pointing down and out toward the street would do the trick to get plates?

The light is pretty bright and all will be located inside the gate as you can see in the attached image, or would the light be to close ?
 

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Here is a few more pics of front of house, I am basically open to ideas... Seems that once the pole goes up put the light on the pole a 1' or so under the cameras
 

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My mistake. You said "LED flood light". My mind heard "IR LED flood light"
The reflection from license plates may be less of an issue with white light, as vs IR light. Camera gain may get cranked up more with all the dark in the nightime view, except for the radiant license plate.

My suggestion still stands: Hold the light at the proposed location, while the camera is in the proposed location. Check image during day and night. Adjust locations as needed. Then bury pipe, and permanently mount camera.

Fastb
 
I don't know if you expect to get plates or not. If so, all of the license-plate reading cameras I have require manual exposure control; I can never depend on auto-exposure to give a usable image at night. Auto-exposure might work if I could use enough lighting to literally turn night into day, AND those lights are far enough off the camera's optical axis so you don't see much direct retroflection from the plate. In one case I have two cameras watching the same area; one is adjusted exclusively to read plates and another is adjusted much brighter, to record the shape of cars and pedestrians.

The camera location may be fine if you only care about cars that are driving into your own driveway, because they must make a 90 degree turn so they could not be going very fast. If you want to capture a plate on a car passing on the street at a normal speed, since you are looking down and diagonally, you will probably need a fairly fast shutter speed (= lots of light) to avoid motion blur.
 
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I have way more cameras than I need the 2 PTZ's can be station fixed and programmed for late night to chase objects and use the fixed at time for just plates and have them back off the view at a scheduled time..

The fixed are 2.7mm - 12mm motorized lens, and figure that I am all of 25-30ft from any car passing. The pole to street is 12-13' and street is approx. 30' wide so half that is 15'. Middle of the road view would be say 26'-30' max from pole maybe more with angle of camera view ?
 
The setup sounds possible. For plates, you want as head-on a view as you can manage. If your camera has a good view down the street, it is easier to capture plates looking along the street into the distance, because then the car's motion is mostly towards or away from you, and motion blur becomes less of an issue. On the flip side, at least at night, the farther away you look the less light you have to work with.

If you have a 100W white-light floodlight pointing out along the street I'd think it would be annoying to drivers, so I suppose that light would be angled down towards the ground. I have low-power (2 or 3 watts) spotlights shining along the street but they are 850nm IR so visually they appear no different than small red holiday lights.
 
PTZ to chase objects, using some automated ptz control s/w is tricky. Many have reported headaches and poor functionality.

Regarding distances and lens size, I suggest you use a lens calculator.
Camera Calculator / Design Software

Enter your address.
Google maps will show your location.
Position the cam on your house.
Aim the cam at the street.
Change lens size.
Based on distance, the lens calculator will show FOV. And will calculate ppf (pixel per foot)
For LPR, 100 ppf is about the minimum.

Fastb
 
For reading plates by eye, the PPF requirement is much lower. The more the better naturally but I've read slow/easy plates down around 35ppf. Some recommend 45ppf minimum. The more the merrier though, so don't depend on low pixel counts, particularly in more challenging lighting (sun and shadow), at an angle, faster speeds, and at night.
 
My cam is aimed at my driveway. Cars approach heads on, driving straight towards the cam. Then the driveway curves, so the car sweeps across the view.
I don't have LPR software running, and only read plates by eye.
Camera: IPC-HFW4431M-I2. 4MP sensor.
I have about 88 ppf, based on the on-line camera calculator mentioned above.
Daytime: Fast moving cars cause some reading problems. But I can almost always read plates.
Nightime: Problematic. To be fair, this is an IR illumination problem. The plate is washed out. I need to get an IR Illuminator mounted at an angle, and turn off the internal IR illumination.

@JetG, I hope this info is helpful. And shows that many variables are involved. Before cementing in the mounting pole, and wiring a camera through your brick siding, some testing is wise.

@Kawboy, is there a way to find actual PPF, as compared to a estimated PPF from an on-line calculator?

Fastb
 
Where to put a light like that is a tough call. I'm not sure I'd trust the weatherproof rating so some shelter for the light is desirable. On the other hand I'm not sure I trust 100w direct from china lights to not catch fire, thus making farther away more desirable.

Focused IR light might bother the neighbors less.
 
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Fastb said:
@Kawboy, is there a way to find actual PPF, as compared to a estimated PPF from an on-line calculator?
Fastb
Click to expand...
Put something of known size (eg 2'x2') at the target distance, grab an image from the cam, pull that into something like GIMP or photoshop and measure the number of pixels divide as necessary for the size of your object. Multiply as appropriate if you want pixels per square foot.
 
Okay so question what is the brightest IR lights and best way to power them up. As far as placement for pole, that is the best location for the layout of the front yard.

As for LED it will be mainly to light up the street/gate.
 
Like tangent said, yes but without having a camera in your hands to play with you'll only be in the ball park. Best way IMHO is to mount the actual camera outside near landmarks you can see in the ipvm calculator. Then if the camera's real world field of view is different from what the calculator shows, jiggle either the lens length or sensor size until it matches the real-world field of view. Then the calculator's ppf should match the camera in the real world.
 
Focused IR light might bother the neighbors less.
Click to expand...
And might not blind the driver as she pulls into the driveway
 
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