Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal

archedraft

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Sorry, I figured I was going to look like an idiot when I asked that. The IPC-HDW5231R-ZE spec sheet specifically said 5x optical zoom and I didn’t find any mention of optical zoom on this one. Motorized lens should have been the duh moment but atlas it was not.
 

GBillR

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Attention,

For the firmware wrong languages, please use the fw i posted here to make upgrade.

General one has newer firmware 20180523
The logo one 1 month older. Seems the logo one still not release the May version.
Please upgrade if cams firmware under wrong one. These firmware can support multi-languages and PAL/NTSC on one FW.

Andy
@EMPIRETECANDY

Is this still the latest firmware for the IPC-Hx2x3x ?

Can't seem to locate a newer one, so maybe this is it?

-Bill
 

Chura

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Hello

Sorry for bumping this :)
Can I mount this camera directly to the wall and rotate the "eye" to point normally ?
or I must use bracket ?
 

Fellouss

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It depends on where you need to point it. For my case I chose to put a bracket on each of them so I can point anywhere I want, very useful if you want to make some adjustments

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk
 

aristobrat

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This is the location for the camera. need to point to the place i'm standing.
Can I make it without bracket ?
That should be fine without a bracket, assuming the hole isn't so big that the camera mount ring has nothing behind it to screw into. Most of my turrets are mounted vertically and I haven't had any problems pointing them.
 

Chura

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Thank you, DIY Pergola.
Just ordered 2231 from Andy, great service so far.
 

DebrodeD

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I just got the 2231RP-ZS from Andy's amazon store and am super impressed with the low-light ability, but I'm running into 1 problem: the IR light on this is extremely directional and ends up making a bright spot at night and making the surrounding area too dark. If I turn off the IR light entirely and just let light be provided by my house lights, then the low-light ability of the starlight is allowed to show, but with IR on, it's an inferior picture (images attached). I took some screenshots of what I'm talking about, though I did it this morning when it was already getting lighter outside so it's not quite as severe a difference as it is at night.

IR light off:
IR light off.jpg

IR light on:
IR light on.jpg

Right now I'm just leaving the IR lights off as the image is great. My one worry is if we forget to turn on the front lights, the Dahua IR won't kick on (since it's just set to off). Any solution to this?
 
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looney2ns

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I just got the 2231RP-ZS from Andy's amazon store and am super impressed with the low-light ability, but I'm running into 1 problem: the IR light on this is extremely directional and ends up making a bright spot at night and making the surrounding area too dark. If I turn off the IR light entirely and just let light be provided by my house lights, then the low-light ability of the starlight is allowed to show, but with IR on, it's an inferior picture (images attached). I took some screenshots of what I'm talking about, though I did it this morning when it was already getting lighter outside so it's not quite as severe a difference as it is at night.

IR light off:
View attachment 35014

IR light on:
View attachment 35015

Right now I'm just leaving the IR lights off as the image is great. My one worry is if we forget to turn on the front lights, the Dahua IR won't kick on (since it's just set to off). Any solution to this?
Appears to be mounted too high, thus the IR can't "spread" as well. Also need to zoom it in some.
8ft high is the max that's viable for face id, 7ft is better.

Put your house lights on a photocell, or install a timer in place of the switch that tracks sunrise and sunset.
Or Philips makes LED bulbs with photocell included in the bulb, then disable the switch.
 
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bp2008

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It is a common problem with varifocal models. The IR LEDs have a fixed spread, but the lens is not fixed. If they build the LEDs to cast a very wide beam and then you zoom in the camera, most of the light is wasted. So they make the LEDs cast a narrower beam so that you are less likely to be wasting light. However the side-effect is that if you are fully zoomed out you will get a hot spot in the middle.

To work around that, you can add external lighting. IR illuminators are fairly cheap and there are many models to choose from.

4 watt IR illuminator comparison

IR light - 5 model comparison
 

pozzello

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Do you have both eyeballs pointed at the same spot, perhaps? that would double the hot-spotting, of course. (edit: oops, this isn't the double eyeball model. nevermind)

to make sure our porch light is always on when it's dark, I have ours on a 'smart' timer, that turns it on every evening and off in the morning based on
our geo location (timezone + North/central/south). Something like this: https://www.amazon.com//dp/B005H3AXKM
 
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bp2008

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Of course you can also use ordinary visible light if you aren't bothered by it and if your neighbors won't complain. If anything, visible-light LEDs are cheaper. And you get color vision. And they can act as a deterrent. Win/win/win.

There are some less-obvious advantages to using external illumination. One being that bugs won't be as attracted to your camera if it isn't acting as a light source, and isn't running as warm. Two, when there is snow or rain at night, an IR LED within inches of the lens will light up the water and make it appear as bright streaks. When the light source is further away, the camera will practically be able to see through rain and snow.
 

DebrodeD

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to make sure our porch light is always on when it's dark, I have ours on a 'smart' timer, that turns it on every evening and off in the morning based on
our geo location (timezone + North/central/south). Something like this: https://www.amazon.com//dp/B005H3AXKM
Yeah, ours are controlled by a z-wave light switch hooked up to smartthings, but it's still possible for someone to accidentally override it unthinking.
 
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DebrodeD

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It is a common problem with varifocal models. The IR LEDs have a fixed spread, but the lens is not fixed. If they build the LEDs to cast a very wide beam and then you zoom in the camera, most of the light is wasted. So they make the LEDs cast a narrower beam so that you are less likely to be wasting light. However the side-effect is that if you are fully zoomed out you will get a hot spot in the middle.
Is there a better camera that I should get since I don't actually need the varifocal ability with better IR distribution?
 
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