I am sure this info is out there but my searches are failing me. I have all of the cameras set to day/night under profile management and all of them flicker back and forth between Day & IR each morning / evening many many times before settling. I also find that the HFW is switching to IR about an hour earlier than the others and staying in IR until nearly 11am. Should I be using general rather than Day/Night? Or something different?
Best Day/Night Settings? IPC-T5442T-ZE, IPC-T5842T-ZE, IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E
- Thread starter EOAEvan
- Start date
Yeah, the day/night doesn't work like you think. Most of us need to run a different day and night settings, so if you ran general, then you will be compromising at night.
The 5241 is a smaller sensor, so it will switch sooner than the larger sensor 5442 that can let more light in.
It is the reason why this utility was made to force it to actually do a day and night profile:
ipcamtalk.com
The 5241 is a smaller sensor, so it will switch sooner than the larger sensor 5442 that can let more light in.
It is the reason why this utility was made to force it to actually do a day and night profile:
Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset
I wanted to use stronger noise reduction at night and weaker during the day, but Dahua seems to have made a mess of the profile management. On most cameras, there doesn't seem to be a way to have the camera switch automatically between Day and Night profiles when the camera changes between...
And if you are running default/auto settings or running it with settings that are not optimized and instead set up to favor a bright image, then during dusk and dawn you will get that back and forth.
Here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures. These are done within the camera GUI thru a web browser.
Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.
We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.
In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.
Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?
In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.
Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.
You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.
But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.
After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
Here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures. These are done within the camera GUI thru a web browser.
Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.
We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.
In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.
Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?
In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.
Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.
You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.
But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.
After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
Yeah, I used those as the baseline for my settings. still more work to do and testing but much better than default. Just cant quite seem to get the wife to walk around in the dark while its raining! I'll take a look at the thread you linked and go from there. As always, thanks for the info.
Yeah, some field of views can also be problematic based on where the sun is.
I have found it is best to force the camera to either color or B/W so that it doesn't hunt like you are experiencing.
But the benefit to that utility is you can adjust it early or later based on sunrise/sunset to help stop the hunting. For example, you could tell it to switch the profile 15 minutes before or after dusk or dawn to prevent the hunting.
I have found it is best to force the camera to either color or B/W so that it doesn't hunt like you are experiencing.
But the benefit to that utility is you can adjust it early or later based on sunrise/sunset to help stop the hunting. For example, you could tell it to switch the profile 15 minutes before or after dusk or dawn to prevent the hunting.
What setting is the noise reduction that you're referring to here? As it's not clear & your other posts on this don't mention it either, & I can't see any setting that mentions this. Thanks
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I;ve recently found it necessary to add a 3rd category - lowlight because I've found at dusk / dawn, daytime settings to be too dark and night time settings prematurely too gainy. What I've done is take daytime settings, adjust contrast and colour slightly then set gain to an intermediate between day and night ie 0-25 (I use 0-10 for day (to allow for really dark storm days on my camera thats under a carport and looks onto a darker than outside area) and 0-50 on both for night). I've also reverted off BLC to WDR during the day on the carport camera as I found faces in the shaded view were too dark. My other camera in the full open runs BLC on custom and 0 gain during the day.
I'd stay away from WDR unless needed as it does flatten the image some what by equalising the contrast. BLC is OK on custom but again avoid if not needed. Usually it's only needed if you have a paycj of very bright light sky in the picture causing the sensor to over comensate and darken the whole image. Even then stick to custom as auto is terrible.
I'd stay away from WDR unless needed as it does flatten the image some what by equalising the contrast. BLC is OK on custom but again avoid if not needed. Usually it's only needed if you have a paycj of very bright light sky in the picture causing the sensor to over comensate and darken the whole image. Even then stick to custom as auto is terrible.
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