What is the best IR illuminator that you have used?

[eyewitness1]

I normally stick with a cameras's built-in "smart" IR illumination, but need to add extra IR light for a particular location; that is both long-range, and wide-angle. I have used a couple of models in the past and were never happy with them... I would like to flood grassy areas (as evenly as possible) that is approximately 30' wide X 70' long. the illuminators would be mounted at 9'- 12' high.

What have you used personally, that you were impressed with? Pics of actual IRs in use would be great, and any help would be appreciated.

 

[nayr]

what you want is not really possible with current tech, sorry.

LED's are very focused, to get a "wide angle" they need diffusers on them to spread the light around.. now with the IR spectrum this really dims the output when you do that, the distance it can reach is cut dramatically.. The Visible Spectrum is HUGE in comparison to your cameras IR, normally diffusers work out really well for LED's, but since IR is just a tiny little slice of spectrum, a diffuser just kills the output.

pick one.. Long Range or Wide Angle, you cant get both.. sounds like your going to have to settle with multiple long range spotlights.. you can try putting a little tape or film in the middle of the lens to diffuse the hotspots out slightly and make it look more evenly lit.. but you cant diffuse many of the LED's before you start to see the problem.

Also putting them up higher or farther back can help enlarge the spread, but only to an extent.

I am installing a whole array of IR spotlights around to get the effect I want, but it was so much easier with visible light. however Im trying to cut down on the light pollution and keep the external lights off until an actual perimeter breach.. I am rarely satisfied with motion sensors outdoors, more false triggers than real ones make em worthless..

It would be cheaper and easier just to use a visible spectrum flood light paired with a camera that has really damn good low light capabilities.

 

[nayr]

Here are some images from my back door camera, I am using my PTZ as a IR Spotlight.. there are shots with Visible Lighting, No Visible Lighting, and various combinations there of.. my PTZ has 2 IR modes, a long distance high power and a low power, you notice the spread is pretty much the same just the intensity is more focused for distance.

 

[Jack B Nimble]

Here are some images from my back door camera, I am using my PTZ as a IR Spotlight.. there are shots with Visible Lighting, No Visible Lighting, and various combinations there of.. my PTZ has 2 IR modes, a long distance high power and a low power, you notice the spread is pretty much the same just the intensity is more focused for distance.

Since I trust your opinion what PTZ do your use and what would you suggest I was thinking the Huisun 10x but, seems pretty buggy and I have no time to constantly play with it - or should I say my wife won't let me

 

[nayr]

there is a good reason why I went with Dahua, they are the Kings of PTZ's.. back when I got my black face PTZ; Hik did not even have any PTZ's on the market..

Your going to have to pay to play.. I spent some time freelance installing some cameras at a theme park, mostly very high end PTZ's that cost a few thousand each, my Black Face dahua while it might seem pretty expensive blows all those suckers out of the water.. so $500-600 for a quality PTZ is a better deal than many people give it credit for.. yeah its not a $160 Hunisun, but from what I've seen the Hunisun is nothing to really brag about, other than how little damage it did to your wallet..

I have absolutely no use for any camera that has an undocumented API and only works from a Windows computer.. I dont have a single windows computer on my network and my work has me listed as an "API Engineer" so I feel neked without API docs.

 

[bp2008]

... my work has me listed as an "API Engineer" so I feel neked without API docs.

Yeah, LOL. Reverse-engineering an API can be a pain in the butt. Especially when you reach the end of the login procedure and see the Javascript appending your plain text password to the end of the hashed version before sending it off to the camera. This is actually a real thing I found my Dahua PTZ doing. It is like the Chinese engineers couldn't figure out how to handle the hash and just said f*ckit. That said, I found that the reverse-engineered Dahua API has a much better response time than the documented API, likely because the documented API makes you authenticate with every request and their authentication code is slow.

 

[bp2008]

LED's are very focused, to get a "wide angle" they need diffusers on them to spread the light around.. now with the UV spectrum this really dims the output when you do that, the distance it can reach is cut dramatically.. The Visible Spectrum is HUGE in comparison to your cameras UV, normally diffusers work out really well for LED's, but since UV is just a tiny little slice of spectrum, a diffuser just kills the output.

Isn't UV on the opposite side of the visible spectrum from Infrared (which cameras use)???

I've been using a few of these for the last 3 years. They are cheap and they have a very wide and smooth IR spread without any additional diffusers. Of course to cover a 30'x70' region effectively you would need a lot of them. They don't even come with a power supply so there may be something more cost-effective available by now.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001P2E4U4

This one I have been using equally long and it produces a narrow spotlight beam that is great for lighting up the end of my driveway.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BC17BW

This pic is from a 2.8mm 3MP Hikvision camera, and the upper left corner of the image is where the spotlight hits snow, just to give you an idea of the angle it provides. Not bad, but much closer than that and it is just a bright spot too small to be very useful.

 

[nayr]

yeah my brain farted and inverted UV and IR, it happens when your dyslexic.. left is right, right is left, down is up, uv is ir, birth is death, etc.. its pretty f'n obnoxious having words transpose them selves without you realizing it.

Ive encountered dahua's undocumented JSON API, it has the strong advantage of taking a keep alive header so you can keep the http connection alive and keep sending ptz commands down it.. just authenticate at first and not each and every time... plus none of the latency costs of setting up the http connection.

Ive been planning on reworking my Dahua API module to use this, it appears to be all the same API calls from the document.. just wrapped in JSON and sent to /RPC2

{"method" : "ptz.start", "session" : 820273504,"params" : {"channel" : 0, "code" : "ZoomTele","arg1" : 5,"arg2" : 0,"arg3" : 0}, "seq":3831586841, "id" : 365}:""

once I get my api working against /RPC2 with a persistent connection I plan on making my own Joystick controller

 

[Jack B Nimble]

Any link on your cam model I like the motion and ptz ? Thanks again

 

[nayr]

My big black face dahua is: DH-SD59212S-HN and the mini black face dahua is: DH-SD29204S-GN

The Mini I just reviewed here: https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9163-Dahua-Mini-Black-Face-PTZ-(SD29204S-GN)
and the big one I bought based upon Carl's review here: http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2346

The big one is much faster moving, has much bigger zoom (12x and 30x vs 4x) and is much more rugged for harsh weather and exposed locations.. other than that they are surprisingly similar despite the big difference in cost... both do great day or night, have very good IR without a dome or glass involved and move with precision.. the big one is slightly more precise, the lil one can overshoot a smidgen if you get it at full speed, but it quickly corrects and the big one never does that.

 

[pozzello]

i just ordered one of these: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Surveillance-cameras-night-vision-fill-light-850nm-Zoom-IR-LED-Array-3800mW-Light-15-90m-Angle/1875583826.html
looks promising. more IR light light than any cam, and adjustable focus to boot. wonder if i can strap it to the top of my PTZ?...

 

[nayr]

excellent find, let us all know how that works out, I am extremely interested in one of them for the back yard.. that looks like it outputs some real light.

 

[nayr]

I was just revisiting that illuminator you posted @pozzello, one thing I noticed from both the photos and the spec sheet is it does not appear to have a day/night sensor.. so your going to want to put it on a timer or external controller.. no big deal if it works well.

 

[ipcamal]

My big black face dahua is: DH-SD59212S-HN and the mini black face dahua is: DH-SD29204S-GN

Where did you buy them from?

 

[nayr]

http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/ and AliExpress

 

[ipcamal]

Thank you

 

[pozzello]

I was just revisiting that illuminator you posted @pozzello, one thing I noticed from both the photos and the spec sheet is it does not appear to have a day/night sensor.. so your going to want to put it on a timer or external controller.. no big deal if it works well.

yah, i've got enough photo-switches of various kinds lying around i should be able to make it work,

perhaps even use one my Orvibo wi-fi power switches to automate only turning on the IR 'canon' when the overview cam triggers motion,
I've got a perl module for that...

so many projects, so little time...

 

[pozzello]

some pics of that bullet IR in action here. turns out it does have a photosensor...
https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9449-What-IR-illuminator-would-be-best?p=86401&viewfull=1#post86401

 

[Mags]

hello,

I just luckily found this forum. I had purchased Lorex LND4750ABW,
Audio HD IP 2K Dome Security Camera, 150ft night vision, wide angle lens

The video quality is not that good, especially at night, under the street LED light. 20-24 feet out, the image is grainy and I can't distinguish any facial characteristics. I'm struggling w/ Lorex support because I say, it's a flash update issue and they say purchase a more expensive bullet camera. They claim only bullet types can increase facial characteristics. i purchased this dome because it provides much wider angle of coverage. I've had issues when people trespassed the property and went outside of the visible angle of my former bullet camera.

What would you recommend? Get a bullet, buy a set of IR illuminators and you can suggest another camera ?

 

[pozzello]

well, that's the basic tradeoff with wide-angle lenses. more coverage, less ability to identify people.