DS-2CD2122FWD-IS improve night illumination

[alex.c]

So I know this camera isn't meant to be the best for exterior night surveillance and I know the dome doesn't help, but is there any way to improve the illumination? I'm attaching four screenshots of the camera at different times. It is mounted on a soffit under the 2nd floor roof. I'm guessing the IR light is bouncing off the roof and reflecting.

I was thinking of putting an IR illuminator under the 1st floor soffit and turning the camera's IR off. Would that work or does the illuminator need to be NEXT TO the camera?

The 5:00 pm shot is great for what I want out of this specific camera. The 7:30 PM is what I would like for the entire night time. I would like the 3:00 AM to be somewhat near the quality of the 7:30. Both 7:30 and 8:00 PM have a flood light in the back helping illuminate. My next idea would be to put a flood light on the first floor and that would light up. But I don't want my camera to be at the mercy of a motion sensor flood light.

 

[user8963]

what do you expect? do you want to cover your roof and the half of the street? install the cam somewhere else, where it is not cover your roof.

And you have spider webs

 

[alex.c]

Thank you for your wonderful insight

 

[J Sigmo]

It's actually much better to have the IR light source far away from the camera. So your idea of mounting an IR illuminator away from the camera, and switching the camera's internal IR light off is exactly what you should do.

Dome cameras are always problematic. But switching off its IR and using sparate light sources that won't cause the internal reflections and light up spider webs and dirt on the dome will help a lot.

 

[VorlonFrog]

For about $55, you can get an adjustable focus "IR Cannon" Search the forum for threads, and I'll see if I can find the AliExpress link for you.

 

[mycatjest]

i would lower the height of the cam. either drop in an ir lamp higher up, or put in a couple of 10w daylight leds and see if you get colour at night , non of them need to be higher than the 1st floor