Lux Ratings are Subjective!

Understanding

Lux Ratings

Lux is the measurement of light falling on an object, but cameras record light reflecting off an object.

Lux rating is the subjective measure that tell you the lowest level of light that a manufacturer thinks their camera will still produce an acceptable image.

Lux is useless for brand A to Brand B comparisons, but great for comparisons within a brand.

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What is Lux measuring?

Lux is measuring the wrong thing, because the right thing is too variable.

Lux is a measurement of incident light, or the light that is falling on the object. On the other hand, your IP security camera sees and records reflected light, which is light that bounces off the object and makes its way to the camera lens. Remember the old adage to "wear light colored clothes at night?" This is because lighter colors reflect more light than darker ones. In addition, different materials reflect light differently. This means that even if you can accurately measure the amount of lux hitting an object, you are still going to have a lot of viability with the amount of lux reflecting off the object and into the camera's lens.

Also, since all we can measure is the light hitting an object - not the light reflecting off the object - measurements of lux in the atmosphere are pretty worthless. Two scenarios with the same lux rating, can produce different results because atmospheric differences, like bugs, humidity, fog, and other weather can how much of the light reflected off an object ends up hitting the camera image sensor.

Even with the level of atmospheric lux, differences in humidity, fog, air pollution, rain, object color, object material, and many other things can change how much light is reflected back.

Lux Ratings are Subjective

Lux Ratings are the the lowest level of lux that a manufacturer thinks their camera will still produce an acceptable image.

Even if you could standardize atmosphere, object color, and all the other variables above, Lux Ratings are difficult to compare because there's no standard definition of success. Each manufacturer has a different idea as to what an acceptable image means. Lux ratings can feel like science, but once you dive into it, it quickly starts to feel like that everything is made up and the points don't matter.

If you are in the industry, we can't recommend a subscription to IPVM more highly, but if you just a regular one-time shopper looking to make a wise decision, we've summarized this great guide by IPVM on why lux ratings aren’t reliable specs from Brand A to Brand B.

1. Unrealistic numbers

Lux is difficult to measure and the process of measuring lux isn’t very reliable or repeatable because conditions are always changing.

2. No standard process

Each manufacturer measures lux on their own with their own process.

3. Very few example images in low light

Everyone uses different measures of success, is that grainy low-light image good enough? Hard to tell since very few providers publish the image at that lux rating

4. No standard for success : motion blur

Slowing the shutter speed down allows more light into the sensor, which lets you take a color photo at low light levels at the cost of motion blur. Without a frame rate and shutter speed standardization, you can’t compare apples to apples.

5. No standard for success : signal to noise ratio

Low light always reduces the quality of an image. Increasing gain control can result in greying and signal noise and slowing the frame rate increases motion blur, so what constitutes success? There’s no standardized quality level for what counts: “can you actually identify someone?”

This creates an ugly system where even the most ethical and responsible manufacturers are trapped...

Worse, it rewards the most unscrupulous vendors who realize that they are rarely, if ever, called on their specs.
-IPVM

Wait. Your cameras have lux ratings. If it is such a terrible spec, why even include it?

Yes, there's no industry standards in measuring lux or even a standard definitions of success in low light imagery, so you should have absolutely zero confidence that Brand A's 0.01 lux camera is actually better than Brand B's 0.02 lux camera. But that also doesn't mean that Lux Ratings are 100% useless.

A subjective opinion is better than nothing.

Yes, there's massive challenges in standardizing the measurement of lux, but most brands do remain largely consistent in their testing environments and testing methodology when comparing their products to each other!

You can be 100% confident that Brand A's 0.001 lux camera is indeed better than Brand A's 0.1 lux camera.

You may not be able to compare Lux from brand to brand, but Lux Ratings do a tremendous job at telling you how a brand thinks about their own lineup of cameras.

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