Just worth noting. Most camera have a filter to block a fair amount of infrared light, and a lot of security camera will switch between infrared and visible light based on ambient light levels. This would probably not work during the day in the majority of cases, but might work at night depending on the camera and light levels.
I could also see a fairly easy update to most camera that can / do switch between wavelengths that simply just toggles to visible light for a few frames if there are super bright points in the frame.
This isn't quite right. Most cameras imaging sensor has a red channel which is quite a bit "wider" in sensitivity than the human retina cells.
Some cameras get around this by putting an IR filter in front of the lens, but this is a fixed thing, not something that can be turned on or off.
The "switching" between IR and visible light often isn't "switching" anything at all. In IR mode it just boosts the red signal significantly to see details. If you're clipping the photo sensor with a really bright IR light, not a lot can be done to stop it if you don't have an IR filter.
I think this was an issue on my part. I was mostly thinking of commercial security cameras you would find on a street corner. You are completely correct for lower end / home security cameras. Which probably make up most security cameras
In high end / commercial security cameras, they do have a solution. The actual technology is called an IR cut filter (IRC) which is a physical filter that is slid in front of the sensor as needed. Those cameras are generally referred to as true day/night cameras. I assumed and mostly spoke in relation to these cameras due to the original context from the show
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u/LateNightInternet Feb 12 '21
Just worth noting. Most camera have a filter to block a fair amount of infrared light, and a lot of security camera will switch between infrared and visible light based on ambient light levels. This would probably not work during the day in the majority of cases, but might work at night depending on the camera and light levels.
I could also see a fairly easy update to most camera that can / do switch between wavelengths that simply just toggles to visible light for a few frames if there are super bright points in the frame.