1. A biometric iris scan camera system for a host device, comprising: a first illumination source disposed on the host device to illuminate a person with near infrared (NIR) light; a second illumination source disposed on the host device to illuminate a person with visible light; and a biometric camera disposed on the host device, the biometric camera comprising: a first imaging sensor to detect NIR light; a second imaging sensor to detect visible light; and a processor coupled to the first and second imaging sensors, the processor to: generate an initialization image of an iris from an initialization signal output by one of the first imaging sensor and the second imaging sensor; determine a contrast of the initialization image; activate the second illumination source to illuminate the iris with a visible wavelength during an authenticate capture time when the contrast of the initialization image falls below a value; activate the second imaging sensor to detect visible light reflected from the iris during the authenticate capture time when the second illumination source is activated, the second imaging sensor to generate a visible signal in response to detected visible light reflected from the iris during the authenticate capture time; generate a visible image from the visible signal; and determine an authentication status based on the visible image.