/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>43951
>>43934

Ordinary digital camera sensors are sensitive to the same range of light as your eyes, plus a little bit of near-infrared. In cameras, it's filtered out because it adds a blue cast to photos (but you can remove it to get a "night-vision" camera) CCTV cameras don't have this, in fact they're often equipped with IR floodlights to make up for their poor light sensitivity. The black domes you often see them mounted in are IR transparent, too.
By pointing IR LEDs at a CCTV, you're overexposing it, same as pointing a camera at the sun. There's going to be a bright white halo blocking out everything around them, which could technically hide your face, but would make you suspicious as fuck.
Lasers block out more of the scene, and if they're powerful enough they'll destroy the sensor. So you have to walk a fine line between vandalism and ineffectually weak lasers, and it's still suspicious as fuck.