About Cameras

A: Both CCD and CMOS technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages. CMOS sensors are easier, less costly to manufacture, and are generally used for low-end applications. They need less power consumption than CCD sensors. On the other hand, CCD sensors are usually higher quality products with more accurate functionality.

A: The basic idea of a day & night camera is a camera that shows a full color image in daytime but monochrome at night. The camera can sense the amount of light exposure and switch between color and B/W modes automatically. To put it more simply, light sensitivity of most CCD cameras will reduce dramatically during the dark and the Camera will have the difficulties processing images. Day & Night Cameras are designed to increase its light sensitivity in the dark as well as reducing noise.

Day & Night Camera with IR technology
IR is the abbreviation of a ay/Night Camera with IR technology? Its sensor is designed to be able to accept infrared light. When the illumination falls, the camera automatically turns on it built in Infra Red LEDs, and changes to Monochrome for n the Dark?viewing. It allows a viewing of areas in omplete Darkness?

A: Camera housings come in various shapes and sizes. With regard to the correct IP rating protection, this will range from dust and water ingress. This system is governed by a number of European and British standards.
IP55
Protected against dust – limited ingress.
Protection against low pressure jets of water from all directions ?limited ingress permitted.
IP65
Protection against dust – no ingress.
Protection against low pressure jets of water from all directions ?limited ingress permitted
Protection against high pressure water from all directions – limited ingress permitted.

A: The choice is wide and varied dependent on the system requirements. You may require Top mount, Side mount, 230V AC or 24V DC to name just a few.
TOP MOUNT
Pro: Can fit two IR lamps on the side of the Pan/Tilt. These act as a counter balance enabling you to use a lighter duty Pan/Tilt head.
Pro: Compact size.
Con: Restricted tilt often -45 to 0 dependent on the housing fitted.
Con: Cannot be inverted.
SIDE MOUNT
Pro: Can be inverted.
Pro: Often cheaper.
Pro: Large tilt often +or- 180
Con: Difficult to mount IR lamps.
Con: Generally large size.

A: The trends are using color system these days. The color camera provides clearer identification than B/W. But, in a low light condition like in 0.1 LUX, you may need B/W cameras because they generally require lower illumination.

A: Widely used and recommended angle of view of the lens for surveillance purpose is 72?to 78?Narrower will give you clearer pictures. Wide angles like 92?can cover more area but it may not contain the required detail or may be distorted.

A: A manual zoom lens of, for example, 3.5 ~ 8.0mm will allow you to manually adjust angle of view from 3.5mm to 8.0mm. 3.5mm equates to about 90o of diagonal view angle on 1/3 ensor camera and 8.0mm sees about 38o. Auto zoom lens can be adjusted at the control centre or from your computer.

A: Pan, tilt and Zoom functionality is required in special circumstances and is generally expensive. There is however some systems with built in PTZ which is easy to install, maintain and control.

A: Network Cameras connect directly to the local area network using standard Ethernet connectivity, e.g. CAT-5/6 cables, wireless Ethernet, power over Ethernet etc. Camera can supply a wide range of network cameras to suit all applications – budget cameras, fixed cameras and Pan/Tilt & Zoom cameras, for use indoors or outdoors.
Cameras produce images in either MJPEG or MPEG4 format. MJPEG is normally used for security applications.

A: An Outdoor Camera must have two separate features:

1. A weatherproof housing, usually identified by an IP Rating
2. An automatic-iris feature which can mechanically vary the amount of light entering the lens to cope with varying lighting conditions, e.g. day and night.

All of our cameras which are listed as Outdoor Cameras have these two features. Optional features which you may want to consider for outdoor cameras are:

1. A vari-focal lens. A vari-focal lens covers a wide range of viewing angles; the angle of view and focus is fixed on installation of the camera and cannot be controlled from the software. This is useful because the positioning of the camera is often limited and the vari-focal lens can be setup to compensate.
Infra-Red ?some cameras have a built-in infra-red projector so that they can effectively see in the dark (in black and white). Others have an Infra-Red sensitive lens and CCD so that external IR illuminators can be used.
2. Day/Night facility. Some cameras have a specific Day/Night feature which allows the camera to operate in very low light conditions. Normally the low-light images are in black and white only.

A: A true Day/Night Camera has separate image processing systems for normal and low-light conditions. Some of these cameras can produce reasonable images in extremely low light levels, where the human eye could not react. The images produced under low-light conditions are almost always monochrome rather than the color produced during normal lighting conditions. These cameras can usually be enhanced even further by the addition of infra-red illumination, which is picked up by the camera but is invisible to the human eye.