blurry camera in cold

[Zorac]

i have a dahua IPC_HFW3200S at my front door that gets extremely blurry in the cold (sample attached). some sort of thermal contraction issue messing havoc with the sensor in the cold i assume. i also have 4 hiks outside of varying models (one dome, two small swann bullets and a big hik bullet), and they do it too, but its not really noticeable. the dahua is so bad you think someone has opened it up and gave the lens a spin. currently it is -34C out. the least impacted camera is a DS-2CD8283F-EI, presumably because it has the biggest sensor.

thinking of replacing it with ds-2cd2542fwd-is.

 

[CCTVCam]

Checked for condensation? Could be small coating inside of the lens.

 

[Zorac]

i have inspected it from the outside, didn't see anything, haven't opened it up though.

 

[alastairstevenson]

Checked for condensation? Could be small coating inside of the lens.

At that temperature any condensation would be frozen, and look like the ice crystal pattern on your car windscreen lol!

 

[adamg]

To me it just looks out of focus. Are these adjustable focus cameras? I would re-focus if possible.

Some dome cameras have their lens touching the outer dome, and any shrinkage that alters that contact is going to mess with focus substantially.

 

[Zorac]

for reference, here is a screen grab from summer

 

[TonyR]

for reference, here is a screen grab from summer

Nice, young buck!

 

[Myllerman]

The model you have is only rated Working Environment -10°C~+60°C, 10%~90%.
Other dahua cameras can go lower to rated -30C. Dahua has special extreme cold housings
with Build-in heating system, applicable for -65ºC ~+55ºC extreme environment also but that might be overkill ;D

 

[Zorac]

The model you have is only rated Working Environment -10°C~+60°C, 10%~90%.
Other dahua cameras can go lower to rated -30C. Dahua has special extreme cold housings
with Build-in heating system, applicable for -65ºC ~+55ºC extreme environment also but that might be overkill ;D

Same as the hiks for operating temperature but they perform well. Guess it's somewhat model dependant.

 

[CCTVCam]

At that temperature any condensation would be frozen, and look like the ice crystal pattern on your car windscreen lol!

Didn't notice the quoted temp. That is cold!

 

[Zorac]

here is a pic from the hik.

 

[Zorac]

Nice, young buck!

i like to refer to them as urban deer. for the most part they wait to cross the road, and aren't very skittish unlike their country counterpart!

 

[Myllerman]

Same as the hiks for operating temperature but they perform well. Guess it's somewhat model dependant.

Yep, could be parts insida like the lens or sensor responding different to cold. Not unusual for parts to shrink a tiny bit making the lens out of focus.
That or the electronics inside the HK cameras gets warmer so they heat themselfs and the casing a bit more.

 

[Zorac]

just a follow up, i picked up a ipc-hdbw4431r-as and it is performing much better. its only been down to about -20C so far, but its far shaper than my old camera. it has a rating of -40C so it should do better.