4K camera recommendations?

Do you care about night-time performance?

If so they will be poor as they are on sensors designed for 2MP cameras, so the 2MP would be better at night.

Keep in mind these cameras are not like on TV and 4K, especially at night, still doesn't allow for a lot of digital zoom.

I assume since you want a wide angle that you are looking for OVERVIEW and not IDENTIFY?
 
I definitely do care about night time performance so if there are better ones out there I'm all ears!

So I live on a farm. I use the cameras for monitoring my two driveways and send me an alert when a vehicle pulls in and/or people come up to the house. I was told with my original 2k cameras that I wanted wide angle, but if that is not correct, I'm perfectly fine with switching! Really don't know much about cameras to be honest.
 
Every camera serves a purpose.

Wide angles are good at seeing a lot, but detail is lacking.

Optically zoomed in cameras are good at detail, but the field of view is lacking.

So many people will have two cameras - one for a wide overview and then one optically zoomed in to a pinch point.

So if you are concerned about a driveway, then the distance that the car is to the camera dictates the camera. A wide angle may be able to trigger at 60 feet, but there would be no IDENTIFY quality to it, especially at night.

See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection
 
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Wow. Lot of good information in that thread! Thank you for taking the time to write that up! So here's the view from one of my current cameras

Cam2.20241208_093843318.2.jpg

I want to get an alert when a vehicle pulls in to either of those driveways off the gravel road. And also when anyone comes up to the door in the bottom left corner of the image. So based on your write up I think the Z4E camera would be what I'm looking for right? Just want to make sure I'm understanding it all properly. It also would be nice if I got a notification when one of my kids pulls there vehicles in to that 3 stall garage, but that's not AS important.
 
The z4 would be at min zoom, past your front door as it’s 8mm min
Nothing wrong with the lens shown there which is probably 3.6mm
The Dahua 4K-T or X have crappy soft focus out to 8+ ft so wouldn’t advise that

There is another Dahua 4K but it’s a smaller sensor and will do poorly in comparison in low light

I’d stick with the Dahua 5442 S3 variable focus
 
I don't necessarily HAVE to have a 4k camera. I just need to update what I have. They're so old that you need Internet Explorer to configure them. Figured as long as I'm updating then I just as well spend some money and get really good cameras that will last for years and give me better detection and image quality.
 
bigredfish said:
The z4 would be at min zoom, past your front door as it’s 8mm min
Nothing wrong with the lens shown there which is probably 3.6mm
The Dahua 4K-T or X have crappy soft focus out to 8+ ft so wouldn’t advise that

There is another Dahua 4K but it’s a smaller sensor and will do poorly in comparison in low light

I’d stick with the Dahua 5442 S3 variable focus
Click to expand...
The 5442 was the other one I'm looking at based on wittaj's thread. If I go with that one I want the 2.8 mm lens correct?
 
How far is that front door from the camera?
I prefer fixed 3.6mm in most cases by doors, mine is about 7ft away and the other 6ft
Fixed lens is always better at picking up light than a varifocal of the same series. A VF gives you more options for focus though
The 5442 series has both
 
Yeah I would go with the Dahua 5442 (54IR) camera. For your goals of overview to know if someone entered your driveway or gravel road, the 2.8 or 3.6mm should be fine, but I prefer the 3.6mm.

If that were my property, I would either add a camera to the 3 car garage or add a varifocal like the Z4E zoomed in to that as well.

But if your ONLY reason is to eliminate the need for Explorer....

As practice, I just use Explorer for all of my cameras and have never had an issue. It is still natively baked into Win10 and Win11, you just have to know how to get to it.

Many don't have an issue with other browsers, but if they do, chasing camera settings isn't going to do it. Even @bigredfish will admit there are a few things that these cameras still need Explorer for.

And we have seen some of these cameras in 2024 still perform better with Internet Explorer, like a member recently that kept getting false triggers and turned out that in Edge with IE mode it showed MD was turned off, yet logging in with Internet Explorer showed MD turned on. That can drive someone nuts trying to eliminate false triggers and it turns out to be a browser issue!

A trusted member here wildcat_1, who works closely with Dahua and gets "under the hood" of the firmware, including this new GUI, said in this thread:

"Not a case of only using IE for testing, it's more the case that this is the only fully compatible browser that truly work with Dahua GUI's. As we've all discussed before, other browsers unfortunately (up to Firefox support most recently) cause anomalies in config, maintenance modes, updates etc. All of this reported back to Dahua to tackle in future but while we all await compatibility with wider browser and platform acceptance OR browser agnostic GUI's, this is unfortunately where we're all at."

So while Dahua claims other browsers are supported, someone that looks at the fine details of the firmware, coupled with many users experience here, that Internet Explorer provides the best opportunity to set up the camera and the setting stick.

SD card download speed is impacted by the browser as well (fastest with Explorer).

Doesn't mean you won't have a problem with another browser, but it is rolling the dice.

Simply use Internet Explorer or Pale Moon and be done with it.

Even brand new NVRs still have Explorer coded into them to access the cameras:

1713628780518.png



And sometimes you don't know what you are missing by using another browser:

For those that do not know...use IE browser for Dahua (and others?) camera GUI to see more options
I've been using Chrome since I bought my first Dahua camera from Andy last year (the good 'ol 4231's). I was able to log in, see menu options, do the config, save, logout....all done. Always wondered how folks were able to see the AI detection boxes livestream and other stuff which I thought...



Or this one where someone showed that with a brand new 2024 camera model, downloading files from an SD card is 100Mbps with Explorer and only 10Mbps with other browsers.

Downloading videos files directly from camera via web interface (using other than IE) seems to be capped at TEN Mbps
UPDATE: If you use Internet Explorer (with plug-in), you can download videos via the web interface at the full 100Mbps speed - note you can't go any faster because the NIC doesn't support GigE. Thanks @TheOtherMike for pointing that out on the data sheet (maybe for 2024, Dahua will go with...
 
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I think if you want greater detail in certain areas you need 2 cameras. Biggest mistake most make is trying to do too many things with one camera
 
bigredfish said:
I think if you want greater detail in certain areas you need 2 cameras. Biggest mistake most make is trying to do too many things with one camera
Click to expand...
I agree. I need several more cameras. But that would involve a new PoE switch and doing a lot of wiring to get extra runs out to where I have the camera's mounted at. It's definitely in my future plans just not as this time.
 
bigredfish said:
How far is that front door from the camera?
I prefer fixed 3.6mm in most cases by doors, mine is about 7ft away and the other 6ft
Fixed lens is always better at picking up light than a varifocal of the same series. A VF gives you more options for focus though
The 5442 series has both
Click to expand...
The door is at MOST 6 feet from the camera. I would say closer to 5.
 
wittaj said:
Yeah I would go with the Dahua 5442 (54IR) camera. For your goals of overview to know if someone entered your driveway or gravel road, the 2.8 or 3.6mm should be fine, but I prefer the 3.6mm.

If that were my property, I would either add a camera to the 3 car garage or add a varifocal like the Z4E zoomed in to that as well.

But if your ONLY reason is to eliminate the need for Explorer....

As practice, I just use Explorer for all of my cameras and have never had an issue. It is still natively baked into Win10 and Win11, you just have to know how to get to it.

Many don't have an issue with other browsers, but if they do, chasing camera settings isn't going to do it. Even @bigredfish will admit there are a few things that these cameras still need Explorer for.

And we have seen some of these cameras in 2024 still perform better with Internet Explorer, like a member recently that kept getting false triggers and turned out that in Edge with IE mode it showed MD was turned off, yet logging in with Internet Explorer showed MD turned on. That can drive someone nuts trying to eliminate false triggers and it turns out to be a browser issue!

A trusted member here wildcat_1, who works closely with Dahua and gets "under the hood" of the firmware, including this new GUI, said in this thread:

"Not a case of only using IE for testing, it's more the case that this is the only fully compatible browser that truly work with Dahua GUI's. As we've all discussed before, other browsers unfortunately (up to Firefox support most recently) cause anomalies in config, maintenance modes, updates etc. All of this reported back to Dahua to tackle in future but while we all await compatibility with wider browser and platform acceptance OR browser agnostic GUI's, this is unfortunately where we're all at."

So while Dahua claims other browsers are supported, someone that looks at the fine details of the firmware, coupled with many users experience here, that Internet Explorer provides the best opportunity to set up the camera and the setting stick.

SD card download speed is impacted by the browser as well (fastest with Explorer).

Doesn't mean you won't have a problem with another browser, but it is rolling the dice.

Simply use Internet Explorer or Pale Moon and be done with it.

Even brand new NVRs still have Explorer coded into them to access the cameras:

1713628780518.png



And sometimes you don't know what you are missing by using another browser:

For those that do not know...use IE browser for Dahua (and others?) camera GUI to see more options
I've been using Chrome since I bought my first Dahua camera from Andy last year (the good 'ol 4231's). I was able to log in, see menu options, do the config, save, logout....all done. Always wondered how folks were able to see the AI detection boxes livestream and other stuff which I thought...



Or this one where someone showed that with a brand new 2024 camera model, downloading files from an SD card is 100Mbps with Explorer and only 10Mbps with other browsers.

Downloading videos files directly from camera via web interface (using other than IE) seems to be capped at TEN Mbps
UPDATE: If you use Internet Explorer (with plug-in), you can download videos via the web interface at the full 100Mbps speed - note you can't go any faster because the NIC doesn't support GigE. Thanks @TheOtherMike for pointing that out on the data sheet (maybe for 2024, Dahua will go with...
Click to expand...
Internet explorer isn't my only reason. The night time performance of my current cameras really sucks too.

So how does one get access to Internet Explorer? I'm on Windows 11 and have tried Internet Explorer mode in Edge and that doesn't seem to work very well.
 
5ft and 6ft respectively, both 5442 3.6mm fixed lens

IMG_8009.jpegIMG_8008.jpeg
 
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Adam Hahler said:
Internet explorer isn't my only reason. The night time performance of my current cameras really sucks too.

So how does one get access to Internet Explorer? I'm on Windows 11 and have tried Internet Explorer mode in Edge and that doesn't seem to work very well.
Click to expand...

How to enable native Internet Explorer in Windows 10 and 11:
  1. Open Notepad:
  2. Copy then paste the single line of code below into Notepad:
  3. CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application").Visible=true
  4. Save as OpenIE.vbs
  5. Make sure the the file name ends in .vbs not .txt, If it ends in .txt you must rename to .vbs
  6. Create a shortcut to the above file and double-click it anytime you want native Internet Explorer
  7. Download any of the plug-in the NVR or camera asks for.
 
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Night quality is all about light ;)

Are you trying to run in color at night? If so you need a lot more ambient light than you think.

With IR it’s the same, but adding extra IR Illuminators can help a lot.

Show a pic of your nighttime image from that camera
 
No not in color. My current cameras don’t even have that option. And there’s virtually no ambient light.
 
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