We often fall back on the fundamentals we learned as rookie security professionals.
The fact is that technology is advancing very quickly in the security business.
Rick Buehler recently received a great question from a security professional in our region. He asked why his legacy Bosch "NightSense" camera wasn't performing well compared to other technologies.
Here's how described that low light imaging has advanced significantly over the past few years:
"You are correct that nightsense is not a true day/night technology. Cameras have an IR filter in them. With Day/night cameras, this filter has a switch that physically removes this filter when lights get very low. This changes the camera to black and white which produces higher visibility and resolution for cctv cameras. With nightsense cameras (Bosch LTC0455, for example) this change is a digital switch, not a physical change. The camera does go to monochrome, but the filter is still there, so it’s not quite as sharp and clear.
Here is a document that shows side-by-side comparisons. The left side set of pictures is Nightsense. The right side is from a true day/night camera. This document is pretty old, a few years, in fact, so the part numbers are a little old and newer cameras such as the Bosch Starlight family will perform better.
As the years have passed, most of Bosch’s cameras come standard as a day/night. The current equivalent to the LTC0455 camera is the VBN-5085-C21, which is a day/night camera. Click here for the analog camera lineup or here for the current IP camera lineup.
But, with pitch black areas, even a day/night camera might not capture the video. You do need some, very little, ambient light to produce a picture.
In pitch black applications, we might also suggest a separate IR illuminator, or, a camera that has built-in IR."
We're hosting a Fundamentals of Video Surveillance class on October 9th near Philadelphia, PA. If you’d like to attend, it might help in explaining this and other camera features. Here’s the link.
To keep up with current technology without filling up your inbox every day, we created Security Tech Tuesday to keep you up to date. Check it out here.
