The subject of lighting is often overlooked while designing or installing CCTV systems. Perhaps this is because we are unsure what, or if, there is anything we can do about it. My experience however, has been that there are many simple things we can do during the design or install that can make a big difference, and in fact there are some cases where it makes more sense to change or adjust the lighting rather than the camera itself.

The basics of proper lighting are  actually rather straightforward and are the same as what you learned in your high-school photography class.

Here’s my Top 5 Tips for CCTV Lighting:

TIP 1 - Get a Good Position – Always try to position the camera with the light source behind the camera. This allows the light to bounce off the face of subject and into the lens of your camera giving you maximum detail of your scene.  This of course is easy to do indoors but a little more complicated outdoors where the lighting changes  as the sun rises and sets.  Try to figure out or watch where the shadows fall during the day and where the lights shine at night to find a suitable ’best case’ location for the camera. 

TIP 2 – Watch your Back(lighting) – Backlighting issues occur when light you cannot control, such as the sun coming through the windows, light up the back of an object more than the front. You are left with dark shadowed objects or areas of the room you cannot see. While many cameras have compensation that can help, you can also make the situation better through both camera placement and even leaving the room lights on during the day.  To fully utilize the backlighting compensation feature of standard cameras, it is important to try to keep the brightest spots near the center of the cameras field-of-view. This is where many cameras sample the room light level. This does not apply to dynamic range cameras which break down the field-of-view into smaller sections and sample (and adjust) each section independently.

TIP 3 – Time for Reflection – There is no doubt that more lighting will typically always help any situation, but too much lighting can cause glare and reflections which can be bothersome. If you do add lighting in a closed environment and find you have glare, try doing what you did in photography class which is to reflect the light off a nearby surface like a white wall. This will not only reduce glare but will also reflect light towards your target at multiple angles which increases contrast of the image giving a better overall picture. This can be important to help distinguish things like distance and the true color of a person’s clothing or a vehicle.

TIP 4 – Keeping it Light – Today there are many different types of lighting such as incandescent, mercury halide, mercury vapor, sodium vapor, florescent, neon, argon, xenon, LED, and the list goes on and on. Each type of lighting produces more light in certain areas of the lighting spectrum, and less in others. To the human eye it all looks like light, but cameras have a different range of sensitivity than our eyes. In fact, some cameras such as black & white are highly sensitive to infrared, while others such as most color cameras, barely see it. What this means is that for your lighting (or your camera) to be most effective you might need to select a camera that is sensitive to the lighting you have at the location. In most cases this is not an issue with today’s technology, but for those situations where you need to make the best of the lighting you have, this can be an important factor. The best way to deal with this is to find out what types of lights are in use. You can often get this information from the maintenance staff. Once you have this information, talk with your camera manufacturer and they can recommend a camera best suited for that particular light source. There have been instances where we actually recommended that the facility upgrade to a more efficient bulb type, which also produced more of the correct light for their camera system. In this case it was a win-win situation, but of course this is not always possible.

TIP 5 – A Shot in the Dark – Infrared lighting is the new buzz word that seems to have captivated the market. Infrared illuminators are built into many cameras these days, and are offered as a way to allow cameras to see in the dark without adding additional lighting. This is often used for covert situations. One of the main problems we see with infrared however is that it creates very little contrast and often times will make everything look washed out. This of course leads to disappointment and a less than quality installation. What many people should consider however is that infra-red can be used in conjunction with traditional lighting to achieve a well lit scene without creating contrast problems found in IR only installations. This can also be useful in areas where aesthetics are important and too much conventional light would be distasteful.

Certainly there are many more things to consider when dealing with lighting issues, but hopefully these 5 tips can help you deal with the most often overlooked and most impactful issues that we face.

One of the greatest challenges dealers seem to be faced with these days is the current trend towards IP camera technology. IP cameras provide many benefits, and the stunning images from megapixel cameras would seem to make them required for many installations.

However, when I ask dealers why they aren’t making more proposals with IP cameras, especially megapixel, the answer I most often get is, "It’s too expensive!". Dealers are obviously fearful that bidding what appears to be expensive technology will lose them deals, even though their customers would benefit greatly from the technology.

While it’s true that megapixel IP cameras ARE more expensive than the traditional analog camera, that’s not the whole picture. A new IP camera system can be very competitive with a traditional camera system and offer a much higher quality system with more future growth potential.

Consider these cost comparisons of a traditional system versus an IP system and you might consider taking another look at IP technology.

1) NVR’s are cheaper than DVR’s - This makes sense because a DVR has the compression hardware built in. When you buy an NVR it does not come with compression cards, also referred to as capture cards, because they are now located in the camera. What this means is that the cost of the compression hardware has shifted from the recording unit to the camera itself. This one reason is why the IP cameras are more expensive and the NVR’s are more inexpensive. 

2) Cat 5 cable is cheaper than coaxial - Especially in these days of skyrocketing copper costs. Cat 5 uses much less copper and is therefore a fraction of the cost per foot compared to the ever increasing coax cable cost. The cost per termination is less because RJ-45 connectors are less expensive and easier to terminate than coax connectors. Cat 5 is lighter and therefore costs less to ship. Often times customers will already have usable Cat 5 in place and finally your installation costs are less because it’s easier to work with. Cat 5 pulls easier, you can fit more into an existing conduit, and the interlocking connectors means less service calls in the long run.

3) Megapixel offers FOUR times the resolution of standard analog cameras - While it is obvious that you can’t just eliminate four cameras and replace them with one megapixel camera, the truth is that often times you can replace two or three with a single megapixel. In particular, an area such as a front counter or lobby where we typically utilize several cameras to complete the view could really be covered by a single megapixel and still give better video quality and coverage. Even when compared to ’high resolution’ analog cameras, megapixel is still a far superior image quality. Have a quick look at this comparison. (http://www.3xlogic.com/rsc/megapixel/megapixel-comparison.html)

I’m finding that megapixel cameras are quickly taking the place of PTZ cameras as well. Pan, tilt, zoom cameras often require an operator to be effective. While the operator is zoomed in on a particular area the rest of the shot is lost.  Megapixel cameras can zoom in as well, but it is done digitally without the loss of the rest of the image. PTZ’s also use motors, belts, and gears to position the camera and lens whereas megapixel being digital, has no moving parts that wear out over time.

Megapixel IP technology is a big win for the client because nothing else comes close to the quality. This technology is also a big win for the bidding dealer. Even if we happen to be ten to twenty percent higher in price we can easily demo this type of system and clearly show that we are giving the end user FOUR TIMES the image quality for a modest increase in price. We can then offer the options of later date expandability without having to add additional recorders and the value really starts to make sense.

Especially if you demonstrate that megapixel cameras will give them the image quality that is considerably more usable, it becomes a no-brainer from a purchasing standpoint.

I’m really just touching the surface of this comparison but wanted to give you the tools it takes to win jobs and offer a better overall value to your customers. I’ve seen it time and time again, 6 dealers all bidding the same quality of equipment and the one guy that shows the benefit of megapixel wins, even with a higher bottom line price.