All urban landscapes have areas that are better avoided at night. Places designed with little light and poor environmental quality; such as multi-story car parks, or bus stations; can cause anxiety at night. However, sometimes opting to take a long way round instead of crossing a railway pedestrian bridge can add precious time to a journey.
There are also parts of a city where we find nightclubs, bars, Casinos and other ‘after dark entertainment,’ or even 24 hours gyms, that rely on functioning effectively and safely at night to continue their trade.
Nighttime or evening economy means more than just people going to a bar or club. It’s also about having a safe environment that respects those who work late shifts or want to quietly and safely roam the streets as well as those who like to go out in the evening.
How could citizens feel more reassured when transiting areas that might be a bit of a security ‘blind spot’? Can night vision cameras be as clear as daylight ones?
A good starting point is to use a security camera that can effectively and clearly record images even when the lighting conditions are not ideal. The footage could be needed to ascertain what might have happened in the case of an incident. Blurred and black and white images, with a lot of visual noise, result only provide inconclusiveness.
Although security camera systems are becoming more commonplace in urban passages, tunnels, and parks in recent years, many security requirements have not yet been met, such as high-resolution night vision and recording in colour.
A way to effectively solve this problem would be to adopt cameras equipped with Hikvision ColorVu Technology. ColorVu-enabled cameras render vivid colour images in dim light, even down to 0.0005 lux – that’s the same lighting as a moonless starlit night.
This capability to intensify minimal ambient light is achieved through two advanced hardware features: the ability to capture details in low lighting comes from two specific breakthroughs in hardware technologies: advanced lenses and high-sensitivity sensors. In contrast to conventional lenses, ColorVu lenses are equipped with a super-aperture, reaching up to F1.0, which allows more light to enter the lens so that imaging brightness can be increased.
This means that more visual detail can be captured. The information can also be easily verified by distinguishing the complete colour footage, even if the video was recorded at night with meagre ambient light.
Hikvision ColorVu Camera lenses also feature broad-band anti-reflection (BBAR) Coating and Extra-Low Dispersion (ED) Optical glass to reduce light flare and efficiently reproduce an image’s sharpness and colour saturation. These technologies effectively overcome the kind of crucial information that gets blocked by a light flare. 
The ColorVu Cameras’ high sensitivity is designed for surveillance applications where high-resolution colour images are required even in ultra-low light environments. Hikvision ColorVu Cameras sensors demonstrate an extraordinary photovoltaic conversion efficiency. They employ an advanced sensor technology – a new light-collection structure that vastly improves the use of light. Tests show ColorVu cameras continually provide colourful, sharp images right down to the lowest light levels. At the same time, their self-adapting 3D DNR algorithm on ISP guarantees high imaging quality.
ColorVu cameras are equipped with warm supplemental light, so when there is no light source whatsoever – even starlight or street lights – they can guarantee colourful imaging. This feature provides environmentally-friendly, soft, warm lighting, reducing any harsh discolouration of the illuminated object. In addition, extreme light conditions are considered in the design process. 
With a resolution of up to 4MP Hikvision’s varifocal cameras can adapt to more scenarios by changing the camera’s focal length. Hikvision’s Varifocal Cameras with ColorVu are designed with fixed F1.0 large aperture. While your camera zooms in or out, the image brightness will be guaranteed. It also allows the flexibility to satisfy customers if they want to change their views.
For instance, when there is a motoring incident, in general, the license plate information is the first thing to look at. With ColorVu technology in varifocal cameras, installers do not need to confirm all the details in the first place, such as distance, car size, dimension of number plate.
Even when the vehicle is non-licensed, or the license plate is deliberately obscured, the vehicle can only be investigated by its features – brand, model, and especially colour. So, though external lighting conditions are poor, even wholly dark, Hikvision ColorVu Cameras still capture valuable colour information.
Hikvision ColorVu Cameras provide bright colour video images 24/7 in low illumination conditions. They excel at capturing vivid chromatic images in many application scenarios, such as public places with no lighting, night security at industrial parks, traffic intersections in low light environments, and many more – everywhere colour information is crucial.