Anyone tried this? HDView Starlight Color Night Vision, 2.8-12mm, Sony Starvis

[wittaj]

@Shadeth - so based on your earlier responses, I went ahead and got one of these as well.

The camera comes up as ENS Security brand and a model number and a quick search shows that it is this camera:

2MP Starlight Network IR Dome Camera | IP-5IRD2M02MZ-W - ENS Security

- Housing: Turret - Resolution: 2MP - Lens: 2.8-12mm MZ - Night Vision: Infrared / IR, Starlight - WDR: DWDR - Water Resistance Rating : IP67 - NDAA Compliant: No - VCA Features: - Hardware Features: POE, SD Card

enssecurity.com

Apparently this website sells compatible junction boxes lol.

I would be interested in your side-by-side comparisons between this and a Dahua.

To me, it seems that the image is a tad soft.

The zoom can be controlled by Blue Iris, but it doesn't have the crispness I would expect from the zoom in. Almost like it is a digital zoom instead of optical?

UPDATE (5:30pm) - so it appears that Blue Iris is a digital zoom. When I went to a web browser, the optical zoom feature was hidden. There is a magnifying glass at bottom with + and - but that is digital zoom. The next icon is a square that then opens up the optical zoom on the right side of screen. That will give you the clean crisp picture zoomed in or zoomed out. So adjust zoom within web browser and it will look great in Blue Iris. Will test tonight to see in dark how it compares.

UPDATE (8:30pm) - Can tell it is a Starlight. Nice image at night in color. Wish you could adjust shutter speed. No ghosting with auto shutter, but I think the distance range could be extended if you could manually adjust the shutter. With moderate house lighting on front of house, this will give you a great video/image of a person's face out to about 15 feet or so. I was a little disappointed in the quality zoomed all the way in at about 50 feet - too pixelated to ID someone. Maybe that is asking for too much. In the right location, this is a fine camera. Oh yea, after setting up in a web browser, the BI zoom is now optical.

 

[Shadeth]

Thanks for your additional review! Where I've been using this I needed zoomed all the way out so I didn't really look at the clarity of when it is zoomed in very much but it is obviously optical and I see that you were also able to control the optical zoom with blue iris later in your updated review. one thing I did notice is that the wide dynamic range was not turned on by default and so on my front porch in the sunlight the shadow area was very dark but when I checked the wdr box it made the shadowed area much more visible I don't know why that wasn't turned on by default but I guess it makes the overall image a little softer and some people might prefer the non-WDR high contrast image if there isn't a lot of harsh light and shadows.

also last night it did use the infrared lights on my front porch and after I had been on for sometime I went out to feel it and it was not especially hot at all just a little warm about the same as other cameras. I might speculate that the metal housing helps to dissipate the heat.

 

[Shadeth]

The camera comes up as ENS Security brand and a model number and a quick search shows that it is this camera:

By the way, thank you for figuring that out! Kind of lame and that you have to log into that website to see their prices (I haven't bothered trying yet), but it is good to know what the original model is and also great to see that they sell compatible junction boxes there in case I can't find one elsewhere.

 

[wittaj]

@Shadeth - I think for the price it is a decent alternative to the more expensive cams - the varifocal and starlight at that price is awesome. If I can figure out how to adjust shutter speed it would be golden - it doesn't appear to give that option. Where I plan to put it shouldn't be an issue because it has a fair amount of surrounding light and the Starlight just helps with that and I wasn't getting ghosting at that location. Some others it would be nice to speed up shutter to get a better shot.

I agree some of the default settings are weird. I think I can dial in a really good image when I play more with those features.

Did you force the IR or did it do it by default? Mine came on so I tested out the IR and then went in and turned to color and the image was still outstanding so I guess they have it turn on IR at a higher setpoint than it needs to for a Starlight.

 

[looney2ns]

OK, so I installed this thing today outside on my front porch. The zoom can be controlled by Blue Iris, and when you zoom in and out, it also auto focuses after the zoom is done. There is also some little door on the camera body you can open to adjust the zoom and focus manually according to the instructions but I didn't need to do that.

The biggest unpleasant surprise for me is that it is totally INCOMPATIBLE with the normal Junction Boxes I use!!! Like.... the holes would not line up at all, so to get it to work I rigged it on there with one screw for testing, and this could hold since it is hanging and it screwed into a top screw but this is really janky and not something I'd ever do if it was hanging off a soffit or ceiling since that would be too much stress on the one screw, but right now mounted to the wall it is kind of hanging off that one screw ok-ish. If you wanted to buy this camera, I'd make sure to have a junction box that is compatiable with it, unless mounting directly to a surface.

Daylight image is good as expected, later once I gather some night images I can post those to compare it with a Dahua I had in this location (same location slightly adjusted angle).

A drill bit and a tap can solve that issue.

 

[Shadeth]

Did you force the IR or did it do it by default? Mine came on so I tested out the IR and then went in and turned to color and the image was still outstanding so I guess they have it turn on IR at a higher setpoint than it needs to for a Starlight.

This evening I noticed that part of the live video feed that had dark shadows appeared to have the pixels "dancing" or flickering around a little while it was in Starlight mode, shortly before it auto-switched to IR and BW night vision. So it seems to auto detect when it needs to use IR mode, most of my porch is dark at night, there is a motion activated light that is usually off. But overall the day and night image have been very good. Here are some images compared to the Dahua, sorry the angle isn't quite the same, when I added this one I tilted it down more to capture more of the area where they leave packages. Neither is the time of day! I never claimed this would be a scientific test, LOL. But overall I actually think I like the video from this one more thus far! These are two still captures from motion detection trigger/alerts. I also have an Amcrest doorbell cam recording in Blue Iris (you can see it on bottom left) so that is another reason when I decided this new down facing angle was better.

Temp hasn't been too hot any time I've checked it while installed in the whole enclosure. So, IMHO the only real issues with it are the funky default IP address, and the mounting bracket does not fit a lot of popular junction boxes.

 

[Shadeth]

After thinking about it more, I like this so much for the price, I was actually considering getting another one of these. However, I see it is now "currently unavailable" on Amazon. Might be due to corona virus impacting the supply?

 

[wittaj]

@Shadeth - yeah I agree with you on image! And I wanted to get another one too