What IR illuminator would be best?

[rearanger]

Has anyone used one of these ?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331703693597

I need to get more light for the cam below

 

[ThePeacockRanch]

I use several of these in the 48 LED version. They are cheap and work quite well for me. I also use a 12v power splitter cable with them. There are other options if your budget allows but these are hard to beat for value.

 

[LeeH]

What are the more expensive options? I'm after something with a wide angle.

 

[rearanger]

Wide angle do not seem all that wide lol

 

[ThePeacockRanch]

https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/8943-What-is-the-best-IR-illuminator-that-you-have-used?highlight=illuminator+wide
That was a recent thread with some examples. There have been several threads on this subject during the past few weeks. Search the forum for more ideas.

 

[nayr]

yeah the one @pozzello found @ http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Surveillance-cameras-night-vision-fill-light-850nm-Zoom-IR-LED-Array-3800mW-Light-15-90m-Angle/1875583826.html uses real optics to get a wide angle, seems like the best bet right now.. I am eagerly awaiting his results.

 

[riceandbeans]

I ordered one of these in a 15 degree angle. I've got a 12/25mm F1.0 1/2" sensor homebuilt rig I'm putting together for chokepoint ID & LPR use (maybe, we'll see). I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm sold on IR, personally. I think if people talked IR as much as they do about cameras on this forum, we'd have people spending more on IR and less on cameras. Here's an example of the world's cruddiest camera, a 1MP OV9712 1/4" sensor with a Hi3518E and a 2.8mm M12 lens (picked it up for $19 shipped w/ PoE and audio). I have it somewhat co-located with a huisun v1 miniptz, which has 2x 2W near and far leds. I'm not sure of the angle, but I'd guess the near LEDs are around 75deg and the far LEDs are around 20deg. Ambient scene illumination is two distant low-wattage ~600nm low pressure sodium street lamps.

Here's the OV9712 by itself with a single 2W onboard LED. Night image is, as expected, horrible. We'll refer to this image as the 'reference' image:



Here's the reference image, boosted by the help of 4W of the huisun's 'near field' IR:



And here's the reference image, now boosted by the 4W of the huisun's 'far field' IR:



And here's the reference image, now with the help of the 4W of the huisun's 'near field' IR, except the direction of the IR is panned left. Note the drastically increased definition of the tree.



Lessons learned (for me):
1. IR appears to be a larger performance lever than the sensor used
2. Difference between max and min IR within scene cannot be too great, otherwise the max illumination becomes overexposed, and min illumination becomes underexposed. Solution is to limit scene size through appropriate lens, or balance IR within scene (possibly manual AE/gain methods as well)
3. Cheap cams show potential to be used as situational awareness cameras, triggering PTZ presets via 1337 nayr-style API calls or similar methods to more capable cameras

 

[pozzello]

haven't got around to playing with it. maybe this weekend...

 

[pozzello]

OK, played a bit with the new 'bullet' IR and it's nice.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Surveillance-cameras-night-vision-fill-light-850nm-Zoom-IR-LED-Array-3800mW-Light-15-90m-Angle/1875583826.html
(i ordered mine when it was on sale for~$50. seen similar ones listed, but chose this one as it claims 4500mw output
while the others were 3800mw or less. might just be spec-drift, but maybe not...)

turns out it DOES have a little photosensor on the barrel to turn itself on at night.
(that little green dot behind the lens adjustment knob).

the knob works by pulling it out and then turning to adjust beam spread.
then push it back in to lock in place, kinda like a watch dial that way.

the beam is very focused, with very rapid light dropoff at the edges.
this is GOOD for focusing the light where you need it at distance,
like for a license plate cam.

Even at widest spread, the light dropoff is very signifcant around the edges.
no gradual smooth transition like with these other units (see below), so unless
you adjust it to spread wider than your cam view, you get a hot spot.
it does seem to be pretty even across the beam, at least, but i haven't
examined that real closely yet.

I also have one of these (claimed 15 degree version):
http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/chDhxKxW
This does work, and given the format (many small LED's) the beam has much more gradual fadeout around the edges than the unit above.

here's a view without and with the 15 degree 20w multi-led unit. note how it does provide more IR out where
one of my licence-plate cams is aimed (~60ft):

i got it thinking i needed more IR to get plates out there, but it turns out i have a focus issue
with the 25mm hik bullet conversion. need to open that up again and re-focus...

must make my house look like a crack-house or something tho, as I've had at least couple unsavory-looking types come up on the front porch
to try and look in thru the front door after apparently noticing the red glow. one guy even rang the doorbell at 5am in the morning and
gave my wife and myself a bit of a scare as we watched him tried the door handles. wtf?...



will try to post some comparison shots of the focused bullet IR some evening when i have a chance.

 

[pozzello]

to the original poster, it looks like you'd want a much wider beam spread than what i was going for.
you might even need a couple of extra IR's to the left & right, as it looks like your cam does ok in the middle of the view.
Is this a Hik varifocal? they tend to have the IR tuned for mid/far range and you get these hotspots at widest fov...

 

[nayr]

must make my house look like a crack-house or something tho, as I've had at least couple unsavory-looking types come up on the front porch
to try and look in thru the front door after apparently noticing the red glow. one guy even rang the doorbell at 5am in the morning and
gave my wife and myself a bit of a scare as we watched him tried the door handles. wtf?...

wtf x2

 

[pozzello]

I guess if place looks like a fortress, people think there must be something worth protecting in there.
I think 'my family', but obviously some people have other ideas...

 

[riceandbeans]

Anybody running 940nm IR + cams? That's the invisible ('no glow') spectrum. Seems like everybody's standardized on 850nm spectrum (red glow) for cameras.

 

[pozzello]

thought about trying one. most folks around here say not to bother, due to the cams having very low sensitivity in that wavelength,
but maybe just means you need a bigger/brighter one to have the same effect?...
here's a 940nm version of the adjustable one i got:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/940nm-IR-LED-Array-Illuminator-Lighting-3800mw-940nm-Invisible-For-Manual-Zoom-Camera-20-100m-15/32578018489.html

 

[nayr]

yeah the no glow ones seem to output about 1/4 the light the red glow ones do, so to get the same performance you'd need one 4x as powerfull.. then its still questionable because your CMOS sensor could potentially be completely blind to that high wavelength.

I think I am going to get one of thse for the back yard, thanks Pozzello.. I needa keep an eye on critters in the garden and my IR right now wont reach near far enough.. Its on the backyard so I doubt anyone is likely to complain.

 

[pozzello]

I test-mounted the bullet IR and took a few snaps. it's quite a spotlight at narrowest beam:
(that's where i grab plates on that side)

widest beam:

somewhere in between:

from previous post above, with only the cam IR's (3 of 'em around the front of the house):

for reference, i turned off the bullet IR and all the cam IR's for this one with only the LED street light above that prius on the upper right:

 

[jimg]

@pozzello did the ir bullet come with a mounting bracket? Or did you have to fashion something...

 

[pozzello]

mine came with no bracket, not even the proper machine screws for the 3 mounting holes,
which seem to be shallow 1/4-20, or maybe 6mm metric. neither fit quite right, but that might
be on purpose so either will work just as well...

(the pix up on aliexpress for similar units do show mounting screws at least, so i think mine was an oversight)

For temp setup, i used the clampy part of a utility light like this:

but for permanent install, i'd figure out something else...

 

[klasipca]

I test-mounted the bullet IR and took a few snaps. it's quite a spotlight at narrowest beam:
(that's where i grab plates on that side)
View attachment 9089
widest beam:
View attachment 9088
somewhere in between:
View attachment 9087
from previous post above, with only the cam IR's (3 of 'em around the front of the house):
View attachment 9090
for reference, i turned off the bullet IR and all the cam IR's for this one with only the LED street light above that prius on the upper right:
View attachment 9086

So what are your thoughts on this? Based on what I see I am not impressed with the results considering $90 price. Personally, I would use just buy another cam for this price or just add a motion flood light then trying to improve the view with this one.

 

[pozzello]

I like this IR illuminator. But I paid $51 (now listed at $76, the 940nm version is more).
If you need more IR somewhere, it's flexible and bright and not as obvious/bulky as the multi-led panels.
The narrowest zoom setting would be useful if one needed more IR for license plates at greater distances than my 60ft or so.
But yeah, I do have another v2 mini-ptz on the way to replace the 25mm hik, and my experience with that (in the other direction on my street)
indicates I won't need more IR than the Huisun/imporx can deliver, so this IR bullet will most likely be used somewhere else...