Initially I tried using the 3.6mm micro for both daylight and night time viewing for both the Super HAD and ExView versions of the cameras. Daytime and indoor use proved more than adequate, actually quite well. The ExView images were just about 1.5 times brighter than the Super HAD.
Of the two cameras daytime outdoor lighting with natural sunlight in full sunlight and partial sunlight conditions during mid-day provide the more pleasing images. However, both cameras would provide excellent views.
The 3.6mm micro lens provides a 92 degree field of view and for daylight security purposes outside or indoors with normal lighting proved quite well. However, the big downside is the resolution of the images. Everything was just too small to provide adequate recognitions beyond trees, cars, and larger objects. Small object like people, animals, or objects less than a small dog proves nearly useless for outdoor evidence.
Indoors using normal lighting and the 3.6mm lens would provide adequate resolution for objects such as people and personal property, but good face recognition beyond 10 feet of the camera does not provide adequate detail.
Unless if a person is going to be adequately close to the camera in normal lighting conditions indoors or outdoors I would recommend against the standard 3.6mm lens that ships with the cameras.
If a person needs greater than a 70 degree field of view, especially for outdoor conditions under no light or low light conditions I would recommend using at least a 6mm lens.
I am not going to include 3.6mm lens images since they prove to be adequate for anyone unless if they want to see a large field and need to see objects moving, but no details. Also, IR illumination or large amounts of outdoor lighting would prove useful at this lens size as well. What I mean by large amounts, I am talking more than 150 watts of power using fluorescent or incandescent lighting. IR illumination would require using lighting that would encompass an area for say a front yard, illumination of floodlighting in excess of reach of 150 feet with at least 2-3 IR illuminators.
The image using the shipped 3.6mm lens shows slight curvature at the edges. This is due to the large field of view as you can see. Notice the lack of definition of small object details.
I switched out the 3.6mm lens with the 6.0mm lens, which provides a 53 degree field of view. As you can see the details of the image are much greater by providing finer image resolution.
As much as I'd like to say that this is the last review for the box cameras, I must lengthen the review by one more installment in order to show night time images.
Sorry about the resolution of the images, but in order to conserve on image space I squashed down the compression to keep image sizes relatively small. Also, since the mini box cameras will allow for swapping out the lenses, I do recommend using some type of magnifying device in order to see what your doing when unscrewing the locking screw. It's very small, and requires using a #2 flat bladed screw driver. Don't remove the screw all the way or you'll end up chasing or losing the small set screw. Once you've backed the locking set screw out, just unscrew the lens and screw in the replacement.
Hopefully, the finally installment will provide several views looking outside a window onto a lighted driveway. Hopefully the results will be better than the initial tests I viewed using the 3.6mm lens. However, I have a feeling that anything requiring critical nighttime viewing with this camera will require using an 8mm lens or illumination with either outdoor or IR lighting. In order to provide less obtrusive lighting, I would recommend IR lighting.
Additional Information: I contact KT&C tech support to see what IR recommendations they have for IR illumination and they provided me with a Sony CCD general specifications document that shows the spectral response as being in the near IR into the bottom end of the IR range. However, tech support did state that 850-900 (nm) wavelength should work more than adequately, KT&C recommended 850-900 wavelength IR.
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