FYI, though ‘true day & night’ may mean the omission of an IR Lens, it’s not the only low light technology out there. Also, to be honest, I’ve done some research into ‘day/night’ cameras and have yet to found ANY that meet my requirements. In the words of my liege King Author, “You Seek the Grail!â€
Cameras I’ve tested include:
- Digital Watchdog’s With “Star-Light†Technology Cameras (both CMOS and CCD)
- Hawk-I “Quantum Light Series†Camera
- Speco “Intensifier†Camera
These cameras were between $300 - $350 and I returned them all except the Speco one. Not that the Speco was that great, but it is the lesser of the other evils.
The main problem I’ve found is the lack of facial recognition in low light (not complete ‘dark’ as I have ample outdoor lighting). I’m sure this post will proceed with pics of people’s faces taken at low light with other cameras and how you can recognize them and that’s fine. I’m just saying in my situation (lighting and distance) nothing I’ve found will work for me.
What is truly sad is the main problem seems to be with the firmware of the cameras. One of the features most cameras have is a good adjustable noise reduction capability. The problem is you can not get this ONE setting to work with both day and night time situations. This also goes for the dynamic gain adjustments as well.
I have adjusted, twiddled, fiddled, etc… with these cameras more than I would like to talk about (so much that my legs would be tired from standing on a ladder) and could never get the overall day and night performance I would want.
If these companies would just create the capability of TWO settings for noise and gain for BOTH day and night, a possible winner may emerge from this crop.
I would like to investigate cameras into the $600 range, but have yet to do so. I also did see a camera at a few CES shows back that showed potential, but they would only sell it via ONE vendor, and it was IP only, so I did not peruse its investigation.