Test video from my IPC-T5442T-ZE ...

[user8963]

You have a lot of noise try reversing the 3D NR to 50 and 2D NR to 30, also lower the sharpness to about 25-30, this will also reduce the noise

In my opinion WDR is causing this. These cameras has a strange behavior. When you go over 45 WDR at night the noise kicks in. Anything under 45 will reduce your sharpness to zero.

Maybe they act different with B/W, but with color at night this happens.

Like @wittaj already said... turn off WDR at night !!

You can turn Gamma to 100 like MikeLud1 ...

 

[Left Coast Geek]

Note my vids in this thread are at max zoom, 12mm.... My little perp stroll takes me about 120 feet from the camera, I'm at about 25 feet when I 'peace, out' in the bottom right corner, and there's no light at all other than the ir illuminator

 

[user8963]

i think you have a misunderstanding of these cameras.
you are trying to have a bright area with only the IR light from the camera. this will not gonna work.
why do you think you can see 100ft away ? is there any need for it ? if you want something like this, you need another camera with more zoom and more light in far.

see your settings... you reduce the shutter and gain and brighten/darken the picture with software after the same moment ?

15 FPS, iframe interval 60, H.265 CBR at 6144 kbit/s, brightness 73, contrast 72, 0-16.7ms shutter, 0-50 gain, 73 exposure comp, 3D NR at 30, 2D NR at 50, WDR at 50

15 FPS, iframe interval 60 ... why?

CBR at 6144 kbit/s .... why?

brightness 73, contrast 72 ... why ?

73 exposure comp ... why?

WDR at 50 ... why?

 

[user8963]

max zoom, 12mm...

this is another problem with your setup... your mounting points look strange to me... i dont understand what your aim is ... but you are mounting all cameras as "overview" cameras and capture big areas... so its quite normal that you cannot identify someone even if you have more light. but maybe the areas are smaller than i think...

 

[Left Coast Geek]

The closest corner of my house is about 150 ft from the road. I want to see what comes in my driveway, and this chimney spot has the best vantage. I have a few other cameras under the eaves, watching the walkway to the front door and the garage area.

I'm also trying to get the best night vision I can from this 5442.

 

[wittaj]

You are trying to do too much with one camera. The ZE will not allow you to IDENTIFY at 120-150 feet away.

Here are my general distance recommendations, but switch out the Dahua 5442 series camera to the equivalent 2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor or equivalent Hikvision works as well.

• 5442 fixed lens 2.8mm - anything within 10 feet of camera OR as an overview camera
• 5442 ZE - varifocal - distances up to 40-50 feet (personally I wouldn't go past the 30 foot range but I like things closer)
• 5442 Z4E - anything up to 80-100 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 60 feet but I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - anything from 80 feet to almost 200 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 150 feet because I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - for a license plate cam that you would angle up the street to get plates up to about 175 feet away, or up to 220 with additional IR.
• 49225 PTZ - great PTZ and in conjunction with an NVR or Blue Iris and the cameras above that you can use as spotter cams to point the PTZ to the correct location to compliment the fixed cams.

You need to get the correct camera for the area trying to be covered. A 2.8mm to IDENTIFY someone 40 feet away is the wrong camera regardless of how good the camera is. A 2.8mm camera to IDENTIFY someone within 10 feet is a good choice OR it is an overview camera to see something happened but not be able to identify who.

So you will need to identify the distance the camera would be from the activities you want to IDENTIFY on and purchase the correct camera for that distance as an optical zoom.

 

[bigredfish]

^^^^
This

You need multiple cameras. One for close in 0-25/35 ft, mounted lower, and one like you have for overview but not positive ID.

A few other notes

• WDR does nothing in B&W, use a schedule and turn it off at night
• Turn off H.265. It’s worthless. Use H.264
• I use a min of 8192 CBR. The 5442 needs a higher bitrate
• you have the right idea to add more IR for the 120ft overview shot, but still don’t expect positive ID without more zoom
• As you zoom any varifocal camera, you increasingly lose light efficiency.
• Match Iframe to FPS

-

 

[TVille]

I have a similar setup to you, wanting to watch a long (140' to road) driveway with a 5442T-ZE. I have it set 7-8' above ground aimed down the driveway at max zoom. I can't identify perps at the end of the driveway, but it shows me if the enter the driveway and what they are doing, and if they try to enter the door to the garage at the bottom of the driveway. I can't identify them until much closer. It also covers my back door, where packages are dropped,

I would try to get the camera down to about 8' above grade and see what that looks like. You are losing about 15% of the view to the roof right now, so it will give you more coverage.

Brightness, while making the picture appear better, won't really improve identification. An old TV sales trick was to turn the brightness up to full to make it look better in the store. You can add IR to improve the brightness near the road, and it will help you see critters scurrying along the edge of the drive, but it will create other challenges with that blinding what trailer and, as your videos show, blinding from your clothes if it hits at the right angle.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

I have a similar setup to you, wanting to watch a long (140' to road) driveway with a 5442T-ZE. I have it set 7-8' above ground aimed down the driveway at max zoom. I can't identify perps at the end of the driveway, but it shows me if the enter the driveway and what they are doing, and if they try to enter the door to the garage at the bottom of the driveway. I can't identify them until much closer. It also covers my back door, where packages are dropped,

I would try to get the camera down to about 8' above grade and see what that looks like. You are losing about 15% of the view to the roof right now, so it will give you more coverage.

Brightness, while making the picture appear better, won't really improve identification. An old TV sales trick was to turn the brightness up to full to make it look better in the store. You can add IR to improve the brightness near the road, and it will help you see critters scurrying along the edge of the drive, but it will create other challenges with that blinding what trailer and, as your videos show, blinding from your clothes if it hits at the right angle.

well, without the WDR off, the far side of the driveway is almost completely black, with it around 30-50, I can see details in the shadows, and tahts in B&W IR mode. tonight I'll play around some more with the settings once its dark. one thing, I dunno what BLC or HLC or SSA are, I know WDR stands for Wide Dynamic Range, and have used that some in terrestrial photography. Also, what is EIS on the Picture screen ? EIS seems to make the picture zoom in a bit more, is it some sort of image stabilization? its off.

that blacked out region on the lower left is not the roof, its a fence around the patio thats not connected to the house, and a dog house thats on the outside of that fence. I can't mount the cameras any lower or that fence obscures too much of the view, and I can't mount the cameras ON that fence or I'd have to 'air bridge' the ethernet cable, plus that fence is only 6' high., so the camera woudl be too low. the chimney mount spot is about 12 feet off the ground, the driveway slopes gently uphill towards the road. My goal with an added illuminator would be to NOT hit the trailer, I want to paint only the area under the trees on the far side of the driveway.

I'd really like a camera with an even longer lens than 12mm but did not find one, at least not in Empire's catalog, and ideally one that has its IR illuminator focused on that narrower cone.

 

[user8963]

well, without the WDR off, the far side of the driveway is almost completely black, with it around 30-50, I can see details in the shadows, and tahts in B&W IR mode.

why dont you just increase shutter to around 40-50ms ? then you will see much more...

there are people who are quite happy with reolink ... so why not ?

 

[Left Coast Geek]

well, 50mS, thats 1/20th second, quite a lot of motion blur. I was using sebastian's recommended shutter/gain settings.

 

[MikeLud1]

what BLC or HLC or SSA are

BLC Mode

BLC is used for backlight situation. SSA For backlight scene, SSA can automatically lower the brightness of high brightness area and increase the brightness of low brightness area according to the environmental brightness, and try to make it clear to see what is in the picture. BLC Default BLC: auto exposure according to scene. Custom: select area to exposure, the objective is to make appropriate brightness in selected area. WDR For the WDR scene, this function can lower the high bright section and enhance the brightness of the low bright section. So that you can view these two sections clearly at the same time. The value ranges from 1 to 100. Default is 50. When you switch the camera from no-WDR mode to the WDR mode, system may lose several seconds record video. HLC After you enabled HLC function, the device can lower the brightness of the brightest section according to the HLC control level. It can reduce the area of the halo and lower the brightness of the whole video. The value ranges from 0 to 100. The default value is 50 when HLC is on. Off Note: It is to disable the BLC function. Please note this function is disabled by default.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

so WDR and HLC and SSA all sound like they do the same thing??

 

[MikeLud1]

well, 50mS, thats 1/20th second, quite a lot of motion blur. I was using sebastian's recommended shutter/gain settings.

Try it, I am finding 2D NR is causing the ghosts/trails. Below are my settings.

View attachment 98715
View attachment 98716
View attachment 98717

Did you try the above settings, without adding more IR or light you are going to be at the limit of the camera

 

[user8963]

well, 50mS, thats 1/20th second, quite a lot of motion blur. I was using sebastian's recommended shutter/gain settings.

yes and on the other hand you turn on WDR , set brightness/exposure comp to near 80, use 60 iframe intervall ... both will end in the same shitty image.
so why not just increase the shutter to 50, then you can see much more "details" in shadows...

i am just kidding.. but you want something what is not possible. see 150ft without any light because you like it dark, with a wide field of view, see through shadows... all with one camera with 2 small ir leds at one point ... i mean.. really ?

 

[Left Coast Geek]

12mm is not exactly a wide field on a 1/1.8" sensor. and I want to add more IR light, I just don't want bright white lights out there.

 

[sebastiantombs]

 

[Left Coast Geek]

View attachment 98799

what size sensor is that chart for ? a 1/1.8" is going to be much wider at any given FL than a 1/3" or whatever.

 

[sebastiantombs]

That's a rough guide and will definitely vary by sensor size, just as DORI charts are rough guides and can vary from sensor size and many other variables.

 

[wittaj]

But at 150 feet out at 12mm focal length, it will be wide regardless of sensor size and still not able to IDENTIFY at that distance.