ARTICLES

The spread of light from your illuminator has a critical impact on the success of your video surveillance system. But in the absence of any accepted industry standards and testing methods the calculation of Width/Angle has historically been left open to the interpretation of the manufacturer – leading to varying performance claims. This has always made it virtually impossible for consultants, installers and end-users to specify surveillance lighting with confidence, reliably compare products, and achieve a consistent level of performance. Width/Angle Performance Consider the two images above, both manufacturers could... Read More

The quality of your illumination is a critical factor in achieving good recognition and identification from your video surveillance system at night. Even low light cameras which can produce an acceptable overview of a scene in relatively low light conditions need dedicated surveillance lighting to identify a subject at night – especially when zooming in over long distances. LED surveillance lighting is the number 1 choice for empowering your maximum zoom function. It delivers targeted and powerful illumination exactly where it is needed so that your camera is able to... Read More

The security industry has historically suffered from a lack of any accepted standards for the measurement of illumination distances. Methods for measuring achievable distances have typically been left to the subjective interpretation of individual manufacturers without any scientific basis – resulting in varying claims. It is not uncommon to have two illuminators with a similar light output, that are quoted with wildly different maximum distances – because each manufacturer has a different opinion on what is classed as an acceptable image quality at their maximum distances. The first problem is... Read More

Over time technology improves, and the cost of that technology comes down. We can certainly see this with surveillance cameras where there has been some price erosion. This means that lighting manufacturers must also respond with lower cost solutions. If the cost of a video surveillance camera falls, then it follows that the price of lighting must also fall to support that camera. LED lighting is a global growth technology attracting lots of investment. Consequently, the performance of LEDs is constantly improving and developing. Modern illuminators that are purpose designed... Read More

There is little doubt that cameras are getting better in low light conditions. All of the major camera manufacturers now have low-light models that are highly sensitive to light. These cameras are designed to maximise any available light on scene to produce images at night. But remember, these are low light cameras, not no-light cameras. All cameras need light to see, whether that’s in the security industry, photographic industry, televisual industry or integrated into your smart phone. Good lighting and a noise free image will also lower your bandwidth and... Read More

The increased use of multi-sensor cameras also creates a demand for more powerful illumination. With multi-sensor cameras, huge areas can be monitored by stitching together multiple images, so that the end user can deploy fewer cameras to save on installation costs. A multi-sensor MP camera can cover the whole scene effectively and its digital zoom enables investigation of areas of interest. The challenge from a lighting perspective is that huge areas need to be illuminated from a single location – close to the camera. When you are replacing multiple cameras... Read More