Dahua's Starlight and Night Color technology

If you are looking to provide security to your home or office during night time hours, or in darker than usual areas, you'll need IP surveillance cameras that feature good low-light technology.

Thankfully, at SRH Installations, we have shopped around and only provide the best products for our customers. We know that choosing the right camera can be tricky because each application has its own set of challenges, lighting constraints, and budget limitations.

That said, after years of experience in installing high quality CCTV cameras for our clients, we can safely say we work with the best and most robust camera out there.

Why we love Dahua Starlight

Starlight CCTV cameras are the most recent upgrade to infrared. With Starlight CCTV, you can get clear images in low light, in full colour!

We install the Dahua range because they offer excellent examples of the quality of the images you can achieve in low light conditions. The end result is so impressive, we think you'll be surprised at the quality of the images that can be achieved.

Many Starlight cameras allow you to add on analytics with the camera for greater functionality and more effective recordings.

Sensor

Dahua Starlight cameras use a Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor, which is a back-illuminated pixel technology providing a set of optical features to balance light throughout the scene. A back-illuminated structure moves the photosensitive surface closer to the light, increasing the amount of light that enters each pixel.

Optical

Lens aperture controls the amount of light that passes through the lens and into the body of the photosensitive surface of the camera. Dahua cameras with Starlight technology feature a maximum aperture of f/2.2 to allow as much light as possible to pass through the lens and hit the sensor.

A large aperture coupled with advanced Image Signal Processing (ISP) technology, Dahua’s proprietary image processing algorithms, and STARVIS image sensors, allows these cameras to produce identification-level images in near-dark conditions.

Image Signal Processing

ISP identifies and corrects imperfections caused by the lens, colour filter, or sensor. Dahua cameras with STARVIS offer two times the definition of Exview HAD CCD sensors and are capable of illuminating dark environments and incorporating near-infrared light for clear recording at night.

Four choices

Dahua cameras can come with one of three different Starlight technology options, and one Night Color, depending on requirements and scenarios.

Basic Starlight

Dahua’s Basic Starlight option provides a good, and more affordable, low-light performance for applications with a minimum illumination of 0.008 to 0.009 lux. This is ideal for moderately dark areas where some ambient lighting is present (e.g. street lamps) such as car parks and stadiums, or where any environment has lighting similar to that of a full moon.

Enhanced Starlight

Dahua’s flagship low-light standard produces clear images in near-dark conditions. With a minimum illumination range between 0.005 lux to 0.007 lux, video quality is enhanced, and details stay as colour for longer. Cameras with this technology are ideal for locations with little or no ambient lighting.

Starlight+

Dahua’s Starlight+ technology provides the best low-light performance, requiring a minimum illumination of only 0.004 lux. A large sensor, smart imaging algorithms and a set of optical features to balance light throughout the scene results in rich colours in the dark with no noise or colour distortion. Starlight+ cameras are ideal for environments where there is very little or no ambient light.

Night Color

Night Color technology works differently than that used in Starlight cameras, instead utilising a high-performance sensor and ISP, and a large aperture lens, to produce crisp, clear colour images in low-light environments. This light-sensitive technology allows the camera to remain in colour mode and to capture more available light to reproduce colour images with superior detail and contrast in applications with at least 1 lux of ambient or artificial light.

Dahua's Night Color cameras don't use an IR Cut filter, which results in an image that remains in colour 24/7 without switching to black/white. Night Color also utilises an achromatic lens; a combination of concave and convex pieces of glass that focus the different colour wavelengths of light into a single plane, eliminating problematic chromatic aberration.

Additionally, these cameras also have an f-stop of 1.0 on 2MP models, or 1.2 on 4MP models, to deliver crisper and clearer full-colour images in all environments with at least 1 lux of ambient light. And Similar to Starlight technology, Dahua’s Night Color technology utilises back-illuminated STARVIS CMOS sensors, which balance light evenly throughout the scene.

Night Color technology cameras are ideal where full-colour images are required in very low ambient light environments.

Would you like to know more?

As always, if you would like to find out more about our services and how we can help you with your installation needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have about our products and services.

Sam Hall

0333 335 35 36

sam@srhi.co.uk