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Thread: Looking directly into Infrared cameras.

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    Default Looking directly into Infrared cameras.

    I have always known its not good to look into an infrared light source and have even heard of it causing blindness so where do you draw the line with cctv.
    Say a camera has a 30m infrared light and your standing 5-10m away staring at it, could this be harmful ?
    Is there any safe guide lines regarding how close and for how long you can be exposed ?

    Does anyone actually mention this to their clients especially residential installs ?



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    Quote Originally Posted by Jake80 View Post
    I have always known its not good to look into an infrared light source and have even heard of it causing blindness so where do you draw the line with cctv.
    Say a camera has a 30m infrared light and your standing 5-10m away staring at it, could this be harmful ?
    Is there any safe guide lines regarding how close and for how long you can be exposed ?

    Does anyone actually mention this to their clients especially residential installs ?
    hey there.
    it was the first time of ever heard of this thinking so I have studied about it and here are my research results

    1.infrared is a normal existing radiation of light(SUN) hidden from human eyes(but some animals can identify it and use it as a Nightvision goggle ! )
    2. the infrared can use as a weapon for overheating objects in military usage
    3. to identify objects at nights you may need it if your camera has the sensor (which mostly all the cameras already have it)
    4.it can be harmful if the frequency of radiation exceeds the limit and in this situation simply you cannot use it in Nightvision because of overheating and energy consumption reasons
    thus, I understand it is absolutely fine to use it without any worries
    I also put my resources here for further information



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    Its hard to find any real info on this subject. The story i was told years ago a hospital ward or nursing home had cctv installed and they used ir lights separate to the camera that turned out to be more powerful than they realised.
    Problem was the patients had nothing to do all day so they often stared at the red lights above them eventually causing blindness in a couple of cases.

    When you think about it the ir light is like a bright torch beam that you can't see so your eyes don't adjust and leaves the pupils dilated in what it thinks is darkness.
    Either way it can't be good.

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    Anyone who works will fibre optic cables is taught the danger of looking into the ends of them, as the naked eye cannot detect if they are live or not and even if they are not live at the time of a test, it's possible the y may become live while you are working on them.

    CCTV cameras typically have lower infrared output power plus usually some significant distance between the light source and the eye and far less concentrated than the end of a fibre, however, if a tech is working on a camera with infrared, being up close and looking directly into a strong light source could be hazardous.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Anyone who works will fibre optic cables is taught the danger of looking into the ends of them, as the naked eye cannot detect if they are live or not and even if they are not live at the time of a test, it's possible the y may become live while you are working on them.

    CCTV cameras typically have lower infrared output power plus usually some significant distance between the light source and the eye and far less concentrated than the end of a fibre, however, if a tech is working on a camera with infrared, being up close and looking directly into a strong light source could be hazardous.
    To compare light from IR LEDS (as in a cctv camera) to light from an ir Laser optical fibre transmission system shows a complete lack of technical understanding. Start by finding out what the acronym "laser" stands for and then go from there. You would get more IR optical exposure just by having your eyes open in the daylight than you would get from a cctv camera at night which is when the IR will be operating .

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    watchdog,

    It's not a direct comparison, it's an example.

    Most people would have read it that way.

    So what you are saying is you are of the belief that it's perfectly safe to look directly into IR sources used for CCTV at point blank range whilst they are operating?

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    That is like comparing a mini to a Ferrari - there is no point and the only things in common is they both have four wheels and run on petrol. Similarly the only thing in common between IR cctv and laser o/f is that they are both in the infra-red spectrum ( not even the same part of the spectrum ). I didn't say it is perfectly safe you are saying I said it's perfectly safe.

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    Quote Originally Posted by watchdog View Post
    That is like comparing a mini to a Ferrari - there is no point and the only things in common is they both have four wheels and run on petrol. Similarly the only thing in common between IR cctv and laser o/f is that they are both in the infra-red spectrum ( not even the same part of the spectrum ). I didn't say it is perfectly safe you are saying I said it's perfectly safe.
    Did you not see the question mark on what I said?

    I was querying if what you were saying was that you believed looking directly into an IR CCTV source was perfectly safe, as that was the impression you gave by saying "You would get more IR optical exposure just by having your eyes open in the daylight than you would get from a cctv camera at night which is when the IR will be operating ."

    I believe looking directly into an IR source at close range may be harmful... I prefer to err on the side of safety.
    At a distance, it would be much safer.

    BTW, a mini and a Ferrari have many more things in common than only four wheels and run on petrol... both can be very harmful to you if they hit you.

    Let's move on.

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    good

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    Quote Originally Posted by watchdog View Post
    You would get more IR optical exposure just by having your eyes open in the daylight than you would get from a cctv camera at night which is when the IR will be operating .
    watchdog, you sound a little knowledgeable in this area so im wondering why only now you are commenting on my thread considering it has been up for 4 weeks without a single reply.
    I would have appreciated your input had you chose to do so but your only interest in my thread was to attack someone else who took the time to contribute to my query.

    Do you have a beef with mtv ?

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    Of course not. I'm sorry I didn't realise there was a time constraint on answering your thread and I dont just sit here waiting for you to pose a question. I only put my two bobs worth in because of the vague & pointless responses you were getting.

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    Quote Originally Posted by watchdog View Post
    Of course not. I'm sorry I didn't realise there was a time constraint on answering your thread and I dont just sit here waiting for you to pose a question. I only put my two bobs worth in because of the vague & pointless responses you were getting.
    I'd be very careful if I were you watchdog... your posts are pretty much just trolling... again.

    Several infractions... two separate bans of 7 days imposed by two different moderators.... not a good record.

    You're getting very close to a permanent ban.

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    Quote Originally Posted by watchdog View Post
    Of course not. I'm sorry I didn't realise there was a time constraint on answering your thread and I dont just sit here waiting for you to pose a question. I only put my two bobs worth in because of the vague & pointless responses you were getting.
    Ha ha good answer. As i mentioned its hard to find any real info on this subject so i had a real interest in learning something new, ill be the first to admit i don't know everything and will never pretend to.

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