Wide Dynamic Range Camera

Wide Dynamic Range CCD Cameras

I’m sure everyone has heard all about the new WDR cameras with their amazing backlight compensation.  Of course, this is a great benefit, but I discovered an equally effective scenario for them.

I’m not claiming to be the first one, but I haven’t seen any side by side comparisons of this situation.  Thus, I decided to post this article.

I had place a budget IR camera  on our back porch that catches both the deck and a portion of the pool area that is not under the roof.  Naturally, the area in the sunshine is much brighter than the covered area, and this makes for a rather ugly (if visible) image.  One day, I thought one of the dogs had swiped a shoe from the area just off the deck, and I really couldn’t make anything out on the recorded video from that area due to the bright sunshine.

I decided to replace the IR camera with a WDR CCD camera that I had on the shelf, and you can judge the results for yourself.  It is only fair to point out that the WDR camera had a Honeywell lens on it which I’m sure added to the quality of the image.

Wide Dynamic Range Camera

For one final comparison, I used the exact same lens with the same brand box camera minus the WDR technology.  See the image below: