I've decided to document some testing of a variety of Dahua cams for myself, and I figured I'd share my testing here with everyone as well. I live in a rural area, so ambient lighting is sometimes non-existent in some locations. Low light performance is incredibly important, as some of these cams have to live in total darkness. I've been helped so much by the posts and reviews here I figured it'd be my turn to give something back. There probably won't be anything to ground breaking covered here, but maybe just a different perspective, and some different comparison shots, which will hopefully be helpful. I know I can't get enough video's of other peoples cam testing to compare between cameras, so hopefully this helps others in comparing between cameras, or deciding if they need to upgrade.
I also want to give a shout out to Andy, who I bought all these cams from. Great service, and always helpful, I know I've asked him a million questions and he always promptly answers, so thank you very much Andy!
The Cams I currently have setup for testing are as follows:
SD49225XA-HNR - 25x 2MP PTZ 1/2.8" Sensor
HDW2231R-ZS - Varifocal 2MP 1/2.8" Sensor
T2831TM-AS-S2 - 8MP 1/2.7" Sensor
T2431T-AS - 4MP 1/3" Sensor
T5442TM-AS - 4MP 1/1.8" Sensor
T5442TM-AS-LED - 4MP 1/1.8" Sensor w/ White LED Lighting
Like I said I live in a rural area, so to start out I did testing in complete darkness. I just did the first round of testing tonight, so I haven't had a chance to get the videos together yet. I will keep updating these posts as I get the videos together, and as I do subsequent testing. I wanted to make this post though in case anyone had any suggestions on tests to complete, as well as to get some initial information out there.
The first set of testing I did was put all the cams in forced colour mode, and took videos as the sun set. I left everything in Auto for this initial testing, I know its not ideal, but it was a big day already and I didn't have time to tune anything, those tests will come. I also wanted to show examples of how the cams perform out of the box, as well as show what improvements can be made by tweaking them. I documented the ambient light level as I took the tests. Here are some noteworthy times and light levels from my initial testing:
16:51 - 230 Lux - Sunset
17:17 - 7.8 Lux - SD49225XA-HNR Switched to B&W
17:26 - 1.4 Lux - HDW2231R-ZS Switched to B&W
17:34 - 0.44 Lux - T2831TM-AS Switched to B&W
17:39 - 0.18 Lux T2431T-AS & T5442TM-AS Switched to B&W
As each cam switched to B&W, I forced them back to colour mode and turned the Illuminator off. I tested forced colour shots of all cameras until 17:41 at 0.12Lux.
At the end of my testing this evening at 18:06 I was down to 0.01 Lux of lighting. Now my meter only goes down to 0.01Lux, so keep that in mind. Between 17:50 and 18:06 I did testing using each cameras individual illuminator while shutting all the other ones off. The lighting levels ranged from 0.04Lux to 0.01Lux, but being as my meter only goes down to 0.01, the accuracy at this point is probably not that great.
One other note about the T5442TM-AS-LED, when its light turned on, it brought the light levels from 0.01 Lux to 2.0 Lux.
Also to note is there is snow on the ground, so that will make a huge difference compared to dark ground. Being that we have snow on the ground here half the year, it is a fair test for us though.
Anyways thats all for now, I hope to have some more information and videos soon.
I also want to give a shout out to Andy, who I bought all these cams from. Great service, and always helpful, I know I've asked him a million questions and he always promptly answers, so thank you very much Andy!
The Cams I currently have setup for testing are as follows:
SD49225XA-HNR - 25x 2MP PTZ 1/2.8" Sensor
HDW2231R-ZS - Varifocal 2MP 1/2.8" Sensor
T2831TM-AS-S2 - 8MP 1/2.7" Sensor
T2431T-AS - 4MP 1/3" Sensor
T5442TM-AS - 4MP 1/1.8" Sensor
T5442TM-AS-LED - 4MP 1/1.8" Sensor w/ White LED Lighting
Like I said I live in a rural area, so to start out I did testing in complete darkness. I just did the first round of testing tonight, so I haven't had a chance to get the videos together yet. I will keep updating these posts as I get the videos together, and as I do subsequent testing. I wanted to make this post though in case anyone had any suggestions on tests to complete, as well as to get some initial information out there.
The first set of testing I did was put all the cams in forced colour mode, and took videos as the sun set. I left everything in Auto for this initial testing, I know its not ideal, but it was a big day already and I didn't have time to tune anything, those tests will come. I also wanted to show examples of how the cams perform out of the box, as well as show what improvements can be made by tweaking them. I documented the ambient light level as I took the tests. Here are some noteworthy times and light levels from my initial testing:
16:51 - 230 Lux - Sunset
17:17 - 7.8 Lux - SD49225XA-HNR Switched to B&W
17:26 - 1.4 Lux - HDW2231R-ZS Switched to B&W
17:34 - 0.44 Lux - T2831TM-AS Switched to B&W
17:39 - 0.18 Lux T2431T-AS & T5442TM-AS Switched to B&W
As each cam switched to B&W, I forced them back to colour mode and turned the Illuminator off. I tested forced colour shots of all cameras until 17:41 at 0.12Lux.
At the end of my testing this evening at 18:06 I was down to 0.01 Lux of lighting. Now my meter only goes down to 0.01Lux, so keep that in mind. Between 17:50 and 18:06 I did testing using each cameras individual illuminator while shutting all the other ones off. The lighting levels ranged from 0.04Lux to 0.01Lux, but being as my meter only goes down to 0.01, the accuracy at this point is probably not that great.
One other note about the T5442TM-AS-LED, when its light turned on, it brought the light levels from 0.01 Lux to 2.0 Lux.
Also to note is there is snow on the ground, so that will make a huge difference compared to dark ground. Being that we have snow on the ground here half the year, it is a fair test for us though.
Anyways thats all for now, I hope to have some more information and videos soon.
