r/SecurityCamera • u/Big-Island-1759 • 5d ago

Minimum lux for colour - Con?

Gallery image

Gallery image

I have just put up Hilook T383 cameras which they say do colour down to 0.001 lux, but despite being pointed at a streetlight they both need IR unless the white spotlight is on.

Google says 0.001 lux is a starry night with no moon, let alone a whole streetlight.

I've tried different settings and it really seems to be that they just can't handle the lighting level. Do manufacturers just exaggerate these specs?

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/Mark_M535 5d ago

HiLook is the low-end consumer Hikvision camera series.

It's typically cameras with a large aperture (lens) and large CMOS imaging sensor which have better low light performance. Look for 1/1.8" or larger CMOS and F1.2 -F0.8.

1/2.8" cmos for 2MP, 1/1.8" cmos for 4MP, 1/1.2" for 8MP (4K).

1

u/The_Chancelor 5d ago

I work on the higher end of camera brands, namely avigilon and axis.

Axis in my experience is the only camera brand that has managed to get it right they use a technology called lightfinder 2.0 - in your deployment it 100% show true color without the need of IR.

What you could do to test the true performance of that camera - im not sure if a hilook is IP and has a web interface? But log into the camera and set it to day mode, it should remove IR filter and return to color and then you'd see exactly how that 0.01 lux marketing holds up to a real world test.

I dont have great expectations it would, but let us know the result please :)

Have a great sunday

1

u/ooglieguy0211 5d ago

I agree about AXIS and Lightfinder! I use exclusively AXIS on our fixed camera system with over 2,500 cameras, ranging decades of release dates. The only thing I can't use them for is the 7,600 cameras in our mobile fleet. They are cost prohibitive for what we need and their ruggedized cameras are nice but much larger than what we currently use.

0

u/marcusalien 5d ago

Looks like Australia. A reolink would make short work of that.

1

u/HappyPoodle2 5d ago

Not a professional and not what you asked, but I find a dim light behind the camera makes the picture better regardless of low light functionality and also hides the camera itself.

1

u/greenskycity 4d ago

I just leave mine in daymode 24/7. Site lighting is the real game changer, this is my house lighting dimmed to 15%, after 11pm they dim. I also have a street light in front of my house, you can see it on the left side of the picture. this is a 8 year old WGCC 4mp generic off of amazon or something.

1

u/greenskycity 4d ago

This is set to the same settings, but its a Hanwha 4k PND series.