looking to fill in the hole in my CF trunk, and was toying with the idea of the reverse camera (regular or infrared).

anyone know of any good companies or brands? experiences with them?

thanks....

 

i just purchaced one off of ebay. It's a little big for what your wanting to do . 2inch by 2inch. Just be sure you get one that is 0lux. very important. I should have mine in in about a week. We'll see

 

Why 0 lux? The bank of IR LEDs will make it much larger than it needs to be, as well as making it difficult to install and makes it easy to notice.

A low lux color or B/W camera can be extremely small, and the white back-up lights on the car do a good enough job for the cameras to see.

 

OK........not to sound like a shlub....


what are the pros and cons of a high / low lux camera.

what is considered low? i have seen some cameras advertised 1.0 or 1.5.

i dont know if thats considered high or low.

thanks

 

Here's some information I can give you:

The lower the lux, the better the camera does at low light levels.
B&W cameras do very well at low lux levels compared to color cameras that tend to get rather "noisy" (shows up as red and blue flecks or snow) in the dark.

For a definition of the terms, I recommend this link:

http://www.natmus.dk/cons/tp/lightcd/lumen.htm

If you are planning on using this as a backup camera or rear-view camera then just about any cheap camera would work. I would prefer the color for personal preference, but whatever works for you. Quality does not matter so much in this case, so go for something with the lowest lux you can find. 0.5 is common for B&W and some color cameras.

If you have a Fry's or other retailer with liberal return policies, grab one for about $30 and try it out. Wait for dark, put the car into reverse, put the camera on the rear bumper or attach it to a bolt on the license plate, hook up a video source and check it out.

Remember to use it as a reverse camera you will need to "flip" the image or it will be confusing driving and looking at it. It's uncommon for cameras do this, but lots of car LCD displays will.

If you want it to record driving experiences (like on group runs) and want to get good-quality videos of the car tailing you, you should find a better video solution like a camcorder hooked up to a bracket replacing the wind blocker on the secret compartment.