CCTV Cameras Have Grown Up

When you think about CCTV Cameras your mind instantly conjures up visions of security, surveillance and protection such as those used in shops, clubs, car parks and many other public places for decades. Now though, CCTV has found its place in a full broadcast, quality & professional music video and to be fair it really held its own in terms of image clarity when compared with broadcast quality professional cameras.

We, at 247 CCTV Security Ltd, have recently had an unusual request from a professional creative production company called Noir Production. Noir had a vision for a new video they were asked to produce for the Tik Tok sensation Nemahsis and her new song Criminal.

As well as filming with industry standard cameras they wanted to film using additional footage from conventional CCTV Cameras but in a non-conventional way.

Director Sam and photographer Tom came to our office to have an in-depth chat to find out what the cameras can and cannot do. Their initial thoughts were that they were looking for the top of the range 8mp cameras.

However, after comparing the specifications and performance of several cameras it was decided that there was not a need to use 8mp cameras as the quality of the Hikvision 4 MP AcuSence network cameras with DarkFighter technology was more than adequate for this project.

A Win-Win Result

For us it was a win-win result, we supplied the perfect solution for achieving the customers goals whilst saving the client money by using the correct cameras for the project.

Technical Specification For The Task

For those of you who want the full run down of the equipment used in this unusual project here are the stats.

We used 25 Hikvision DarkFighter lowlight Bullet cameras along with a single Hikvison 4 MP DarkFighter PTZ Camera. To achieve the final quality product the whole video was recorded onto a DS-9 series 32 channel NVR

The good thing about using Hikvision is we are very familiar with their products and know the product’s capabilities and fully understand that they are capable of so much more than a standard CCTV view. Simply with a little tweaking of the shutter speed, adjusting the colours and contrast you can get the cameras to deal with pretty much any lighting conditions. If you have watched the video you will see that there is a large range of light changes, however the cameras from Hikvision dealt incredibly well with the ever changing lighting, keeping the images crisp and clear throughout all the recordings, without faltering.

Impeccable Results

The images below show the complete setup from installation to testing of the different lighting conditions. Having installed Hikvision products for many years in standard situations, we knew exactly what to suggest to get the result that was required. We hope you’ll agree the result actually looked better on film than even we could have imagined. It was a very rewarding experience putting these cameras systems to use in such an inventive and novel way.