Raymarine CAM200IP Marine Camera

$699.99; www.raymarine.com

Let’s talk about increasingly advanced boat cameras, particularly the Raymarine CAM200IP I saw demoed in Ft. Lauderdale, which could be an excellent addition to most any boat running Raymarine LightHouse II software. The specifications say the image sensor is a 2-megapixel 1/2.8-type SONY Exmor CMOS and I think I saw some of the Exmor processing advantages described in its promotional video. I definitely saw the big 53-degree-horizontal by 33-degree-vertical field of view and what seemed like high resolution on whichever display we tried (the max is 1920 by 1080 pixels). Yes, “whichever display we tried,” because as an IP network camera, the 200 can be easily called up on any Ray display connected by Ethernet. In fact, if you have a gS Series MFD it will only take a RayNet cable to completely wire the CAM200IP because the gS has PoE (power over Ethernet). And if you only have a Ray a-, c- and e-Series, the Y cable you’d use to insert 12 volts into the RayNet lead is still trivial compared to what it takes to power a regular analog camera and split its output to multiple displays. The CAM200IP is somewhat bulky—for instance it hung about 4 inches from the overhead in the demo install—but it does include 20 infrared LEDs that give it black-and-white low-light vision purportedly out to 20 meters. The CAM100 has stood up to lots of abuse on Gizmo without a hiccup and especially without any internal moisture affecting its sharp (for analog) image, and that’s a good sign for the similarly cased 200. As is, Ray’s Lighthouse II operating software will let you swipe from one camera source to another, but Version 12—shown in Lauderdale and now out—adds a “Quad View” mode that looks like what you see on many megayachts.