Night Vision Comparison: Infrared, Starlight, and Full-Color Cameras

When purchasing a camera, night vision capability and clarity are crucial factors to consider. Currently, the three most common types of night vision cameras are Infrared (IR), Starlight, and Full-Color cameras. What are the differences in their night vision capabilities?

IR Night Vision Cameras

Ordinary infrared night vision cameras are the most common cameras on the market. They rely on infrared light to illuminate objects in the dark, capturing images that are invisible to the naked eye.

Pros: Far-reaching night vision, typically up to 15 meters, strong concealment, difficult for unauthorized individuals to detect, stable performance.

Cons: The major drawback of infrared cameras is that they produce black and white images. If more details in the captured images are needed, these cameras may fall short.

Starlight Night View Cameras

Starlight cameras, as the name suggests, can produce color images with just a hint of starlight. These cameras typically use large aperture lenses and highly sensitive sensors, allowing more light and better sensitivity than regular cameras.

Pros: In the same low-light conditions as infrared cameras, starlight cameras can display color images. The images are more detailed, with fewer noise points, and a transparent appearance.

Cons: Starlight camera's color monitoring is not permanent; when the brightness falls below the infrared switching threshold, the camera switches to infrared night vision, displaying black and white images. In extremely dark environments, the monitoring results are similar to those of infrared cameras, showing black and white images.

Full-Color Cameras

The most prominent feature of full-color cameras is their ability to achieve 24-hour, all-weather color monitoring. They usually employ F1.0 super-large aperture lenses, significantly larger than those in starlight cameras, achieving 2.56 times the light input of regular cameras.

Even in low-light conditions, full-color cameras can capture color images. In environments with extremely low or almost no light, the camera automatically activates a 3000k color temperature soft light for illumination, providing a mild and non-glaring light source.

Pros: The greatest advantage of full-color cameras is their robust night vision capability. They can present clear, color images in extremely low or no light conditions, making them suitable for scenarios such as roads, warehouses, underground parking lots, bars, parks, and other low-light environments that require high-definition image quality.

Cons: In low-light, no-light, or low-light conditions, the built-in soft light of full-color cameras will automatically turn on. Therefore, if your scenario is not suitable for soft light, it is advisable not to choose this model.

In nighttime environments, the choice of camera type depends on monitoring requirements and specific usage scenarios.