It's only fair since I asked for this forum to start the first thread here.

I recently made a trip to Austin, Tx kinda work related and we stopped by GT Distributors. It's a store for police, fire and EMS people. The main thing I was looking for they didn't have so I went to my back up plan. I searched for a decent IR flashlight. The only one that they had is a Streamlight Sidewinder. It's a multi colored light with LEDs in white, red, blue and this model in IR. It was $50 bucks and I figured it was worth a try. Streamlight is a good brand in my dealings in the emergency field. I got home later and found a dark room and turned on my Sony Handycam. With nightshot one the new flashlight doesn't do a thing. I was pretty disappointed but it works great for shift duty. So I'm not out anything really but I got something to use at work. I intend to use it still on investigations since it has a red light on it but the IR light just doesn't do much.

So now I continue my quest looking for a decent IR light. By the way I know they are out there but I do not like to buy things on the internet. I will probably have to resort to this but I'm in no hurry.

I've heard of other groups using them but from what I read you have to be careful because of the light some of them gives off can be harmful.

That's interesting about the Sony neutering. It's a shame then that Sony is still the leader in Night Shot when it comes to camcorders. I got mine back in January and I love it. It's easy to use and it will take a long time for me to fill up the hard drive on it.

The model I got has a 30 gig internal hard drive and then a slot for a flash memory stick. I made an IR light for it but I'm not that happy with it. It works great for inside a house but I'm looking for something a little better. I'll make a different thread on that later along with one for a Sony DAR and whatever else I can think of.

Tell me about it. That's one reason why I want to get a better IR light. When we were at the Myrtles I didn't bring the static cam setup, just the static cam it self. I set it up in a corner and just plugged it in. The only reason I brought it was for the IR lights that it has, it pretty much floods the entire room. I then just filmed regularly with the camcorder and didn't have any problems. So this is something I might do later in the future until I get around to finding an IR light that will suit my needs.