Night IR / visible light?

[SlickWillie]

Newbie here -- I just installed 2 non-PTZ 1080p cameras that cover my driveway. In the daytime, they work great. At night in that area (driveway), I have two LED floodlights (2 lights per floodlight = 4 total 100 watt equivalent bulbs). They cover a good bit of the area and are left on 24/7. I've been fiddling with my camera commands, and I seem to prefer the "color" mode at night (not IR). I've also noticed that I need to dim my floodlights at night to trigger the IR to come on. My question is whether it's best practice to use IR at night or does anyone totally light up the viewing area with visible light and leave the cameras on normal daytime mode??? My neighbors on that side of my house are used to the light since I've used the floodlights on 24/7 for several years. When I got the cameras, I just assumed I would be using them in IR mode at night, but now I'm thinking about just angling my floodlights to more efficiently light the entire area the cameras cover.

Thanks!

 

[SlickWillie]

Or could you use color/daytime mode with some white light (existing floodlight), then add some type of intense IR floodlight to fill out any dark areas? Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/CMVision-IR200-Outdoor-Illuminator-Position-Adjustment/dp/B004V9Z7ZY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515133327&sr=8-4&keywords=IR+floodlight

 

[alastairstevenson]

Or could you use color/daytime mode with some white light (existing floodlight), then add some type of intense IR floodlight to fill out any dark areas?

When in day mode the camera IR cut filter will block all IR light, so an IR floodlight would not be visible.

My question is whether it's best practice to use IR at night or does anyone totally light up the viewing area with visible light and leave the cameras on normal daytime mode???

I think the answer depends entirely on which mode gives you the best results - which you should evaluate by looking at how clearly a moving subject is recorded. It's really easy to have a crisp clear static image but uselessly blurred on motion.

 

[bigredfish]

^^^^^
THIS

Read the above last sentence closely!

 

[SlickWillie]

I'm thinking that perhaps the best solution would be to dim my white floodlights just enough to force the night mode to come on, then backfill with an IR floodlight. I was having trouble with my wires (resolved in another thread here... thanks!) -- so now I'm moving on to testing this.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

Does your cam have an option to force it in black and white (IR on) mode? How about a schedule? Just an idea. When testing in color mode how clear is someone's face?