Night recording with floodlight

[VITOLIER]

My house is located next to a forest with a forest lane running along my house. That facilitated two years ago a burglar to climb a wall and penetrated into the building. That happened before I had my surveillance



My video surveillance, not visible, covers the lane. The camera I use is the HIKVISION colorvu DS-2CD2047G1-L, 6 mm, 4MB.The video quality at night does not satisfy me nor is a face easily recognizable at a distance of 10 m. I decided to install an 800 lumen LED floodlight with a movement detector. Camera, floodlight projector and detector are all located at different places. Most important the camera is impossible to locate. The surprise to a visitor is total when in total blackness the flash appears and being filmed unaware.



The settings used for the shots shown here are the following: auto switch, exposure time 1/3, image setting: brightness 0, saturation 20, contrast 100. The camera is located about 10 m from me. The 3 pictures have been zoomed.



A camera with 6MP or higher my provide better pictures.
My house is located next to a forest with a forest lane running along my house. That facilitated two years ago a burglar to climb a wall and penetrated into the building. That happened before I had my surveillance



My video surveillance, not visible, covers the lane. The camera I use is the HIKVISION colorvu DS-2CD2047G1-L, 6 mm, 4MB.The video quality at night does not satisfy me nor is a face easily recognizable at a distance of 10 m. I decided to install an 800 lumen LED floodlight with a movement detector. Camera, floodlight projector and detector are all located at different places. Most important the camera is impossible to locate. The surprise to a visitor is total when in total blackness the flash appears and being filmed unaware.



The settings used for the shots shown here are the following: auto switch, exposure time 1/3, image setting: brightness 0, saturation 20, contrast 100. The camera is located about 10 m from me. The 3 pictures have been zoomed.



A camera with 6MP or higher my provide better pictures.

Floodlight

 

[VITOLIER]

Instead of auto-switch I recommend to set it on DAY.

 

[JB1970]

The problem you may have is that intruders rarely remain still! Ideally the exposure time should be set to a level that will prevent excessive motion blur. Although this motion blur may not be immediately visible while viewing live, it will show when it matters, when you try and get a decent still shot of your intruder.

Unfortunately it's not possible to read what exposure time is being used by the camera at any given time as it is variable. The setting is a capped maximum exposure time. That's to say, the camera will use the minimum exposure time that it can to allow a correctly exposed image with the available light and as the light reduces, the exposure time will increase accordingly until it reaches the capped setting.

ColorVu cameras ship with a default exposure time of 1/12 second, whereas most other Hikvision cameras come set at 1/25 second - both are too slow to avoid motion blur in images of a target at walking speed. I'd usually set them at 1/50 second or even 1/100 second to avoid motion blur. You would however be reliant on your floodlight with those settings, without it the image would be too dark.

 

[VITOLIER]

JB thank you for your comments which I rate very professional. As to the camera I use in this particular case I can adjust exposure from 1 to 1/100000 amongst 17 settings and tried various options. Needless to say the terrain matters and in my case moving fast at night for an intruder is difficult (uphill, cobble stones, slippery). What matters to me is to have face, body and clothing recognition. The light of my flood light stays on for 10 to 15 seconds even if there are no movements and if movement continues (i.e. a walking person) within the captured range of detector the light stays on. I captured a cat walking up the lane at 2 am and could identify it. I will continue testing the setup with your observations in mind and report.

 

[JB1970]

JB thank you for your comments which I rate very professional. As to the camera I use in this particular case I can adjust exposure from 1 to 1/100000 amongst 17 settings and tried various options. Needless to say the terrain matters and in my case moving fast at night for an intruder is difficult (uphill, cobble stones, slippery). What matters to me is to have face, body and clothing recognition. The light of my flood light stays on for 10 to 15 seconds even if there are no movements and if movement continues (i.e. a walking person) within the captured range of detector the light stays on. I captured a cat walking up the lane at 2 am and could identify it. I will continue testing the setup with your observations in mind and report.

Yes, as I said, it could be that you've set at 1/3 second but the camera has enough light and is using 1/25 sec or faster, hence you're getting good results. I only wish there were a way to see what exposure the camera was using at any given point in time; as armed with that information we would be able to gauge in real terms how much light was needed to produce an acceptably exposed image, without risk of motion blur, rather than relying on the (ridiculous) lux levels specified in the manufacturers data sheets.

 

[VITOLIER]

Your comments are interesting and I will try to research this issue. There may be a way to monitor the actual exposure time, by selecting in DAY/NIGHT SWITCH btw night, auto and auto-switch. I choose day however so the location of the camera cannot be detected (camera flash light). I attach a pic of the lane running along my house which I survey.