I have cameras front and back of house which switch to IR at night. Will be getting PIR outside lights soon and curious as to whether if the light switches on will the camera work as a daytime one, ie: with colour or will it switch to IR with no colour?
Kenny Cargill
In my case, no. I have two high end cameras one in the front, one in the back of our house.
IR camera uses IR filter to see in the night. Most lens do not have enough sensitivity to see color in the night. I have commercial grade cameras but they do not see color in the dark. Check the specs. for your cameras.
Why don't you ask the manufacturer of the camera?
It really depends on the intensity of the reflected light. My dual mode cameras work in color in normal room lighting but I don't have enough flood light outside to do it. When I was trying to catch a thief and I had about 1500 watts of light hitting my driveway (triggered by the inside light in my car) it saw color. My cameras were not the clue that solved the case tho, it was a marked and photographed $2 bill that showed up the next day at the 7-11 at the end of the street, That put the cops on the bad guy and they caught him for another crime. (daytime burglary that is more serious than car hopping)
Per Kenny:
It will depend on your cameras and the intensity of the light that is triggered.
I have a bunch of the older model of these el-cheapo cams:
Their setup screen lets me choose Night-Always, Daytime-Always, or automagic switching depending on light level.
I have them set to auto.
Couple hundred watts of floodlight is not enough to make them switch to daylight, but 500 watts of halogen does the job.
But the change is not instant. The light comes on, and then there are a few seconds until the camera catches on and switches to daylight mode.
Here are a couple samples of what I get once the flood is on and the camera has changed over. The second one gives an idea of motion quality.
Thanks for the replies, will wait and see. It's not a problem, just curious.
Kenny
Per Kenny:
It will depend on your cameras and the intensity of the light that is triggered.
I have a bunch of the older model of these el-cheapo cams:
Their setup screen lets me choose Night-Always, Daytime-Always, or automagic switching depending on light level.
I have them set to auto.
Couple hundred watts of floodlight is not enough to make them switch to daylight, but 500 watts of halogen does the job.
But the change is not instant. The light comes on, and then there are a few seconds until the camera catches on and switches to daylight mode.
Here are a couple samples of what I get once the flood is on and the camera has changed over. The second one gives an idea of motion quality.
I am confused by your question, but it must be me since a lot of others seemed to understand and responded. What is PIR? To me, PIR is Passive InfraRed. As in, PIR motion detectors. They detect body heat rather than relying on IR illumination from lamps. So, I'm not sure what a PIR light would be. In any case, if all the light in the area is IR, the cameras will look just like they normally do at night. The filter someone mentioned filters out IR in the DAY time. Without the filter, the color daytime picture can look fuzzy. (That is caused by the lens focusing IR light differently than visible light because of the different wavelength. That happens with regular light between different colors, too, but the difference isn't enough to be noticable in most situations. Refractor telescopes can be purchased for a few hundred dollars or many thousands of dollars with the difference being special glass that minimizes that effect costs a lot of money).
I'm an installer. Impossible to answer without more data. Camera make/model/lens? Distance to target and light level, in relation to camera position to target are all factors. Plus any additional light source.
I think he means PIR activated traditional lighting (driveway light).
IR triggered flood lights.
Figured that, you'll need to provide more data and sample screen grabs for me to help
He's a Brit, so tech is a little different there.
He's a Brit, so tech is a little different there.
You've insulted me, I'm Irish in the British occupied part of Ireland. Also to the nitpickers who commented earlier, notice I'm now bottom posting, just had to tick a box in WLM.
Kenny
Kenny explained on 2/2/2016 :
Glad you are bottom posting, that's the accepted norm.
Sorry about calling you a Brit Kenny. I didn't know you were a N. I.
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