Camera, Cameras, What one to get?

Coldhell

Coldhell

n3wb
Apr 1, 2017
6
2
OK so right now I have a Reolink RLC-410s and the daytime does great. however, the night view to me is bad. It is good as long as stuff is moving slow but when something is moving, lets say a person turning it goes bad with motion blur. I have tried to fix it but no dice. So I am looking for something better for night use.

I posted a video of what I am talking about where I caught a guy trying to get into my car. You will see the blur I am talking about. Is there a camera that will be better than this or a way to fix it? I am using BI for the software and it is set at 1440.

 
hmjgriffon said:
No gloves, did cops get prints?

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Click to expand...

He had gloves on, they were white. We think we know who it is and they are looking for him. Looks like he was friends with someone in the neighborhood but took off and they can't find him.

This was the second time our area was hit. This happened 4 days after i put up the camera.
 
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Dahua seems to be shipping some of the best low-light cameras at the moment. They use a bigger sensor made by Sony that does great. Hikivision is just now starting to ship cameras with the same sensor, but no reviews yet.

This thread will show all of the Dahua Starlight models:
Dahua 2MP Starlight Lineup

This is probably the most popular Starlight. Long thread, but worth zipping through from the beginning to see the videos and pictures that people have uploaded from this model.
Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)
 
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Frame by frame at ~9 seconds is enough for me to see what he looks like.... You're probably gonna get Dahua recommendations based on your price range. Almost all my cameras are and I love them. Check out the sub forum for different reviews.
 
As much as I hate reolink this camera seems to do fine for what your doing... it looks like you could get snapshots of this face and get ok face ID if needed,but he was wearing a hat so it might be a little harder to get identification, with that said it doesn't matter what camera you have a $5.00 mask will beat your 500.00 camera. If you want better image when things are moving adjust your shutter speed ,with that said it will darken the image, you need to find a happy medium. I would try adjusting your shutter speed before buying anything from the video that looks like what it needs, try a 1/200 or 1/150
 
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Meh, setting fixed shutter is great when you're trying to get a good picture but in a security situation with constantly shifting conditions you're better off with a good camera that can adjust itself on the fly and look good.

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Camit said:
As much as I hate reolink this camera seems to do fine for what your doing... it looks like you could get snapshots of this face and get ok face ID if needed,but he was wearing a hat so it might be a little harder to get identification, with that said it doesn't matter what camera you have a $5.00 mask will beat your 500.00 camera. If you want better image when things are moving adjust your shutter speed ,with that said it will darken the image, you need to find a happy medium. I would try adjusting your shutter speed before buying anything from the video that looks like what it needs, try a 1/200 or 1/150
Click to expand...

Ok that did it. I didn't see that option at first but just tested it. A little bit of noise but I am good with that trade off. Thanks
 
hmjgriffon said:
Meh, setting fixed shutter is great when you're trying to get a good picture but in a security situation with constantly shifting conditions you're better off with a good camera that can adjust itself on the fly and look good.

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Click to expand...

Have one in mind?
 
The jerk even gave you a sporting chance by looking directly up at the camera. As mentioned already though, it's your shutter speed that's the problem. Most cams have "auto" mode set for too slow a shutter speed for moving targets, ESPECIALLY at night. That includes cameras that COULD have a great image at even faster shutter speeds. It makes the background look nice (I bet that sells more cameras than images with some noise) but moving targets are uselessly blurred. That makes manual control, particularly at night, almost essential. Also, add more light. That'll give you back the sharpness you had at a slower shutter speed while cutting way down on the motion blur.

And what did you mean by having BI set at 1440? I expect you mean 1440P (4mp) resolution for the camera. Changing that won't change the blur, just give you less pixels in your picture. Adding enough light so that you can force the camera to run a faster shutter speed while still having a clean picture is what you need to do. Even crappy cameras can usually be tweaked to give a good picture at night if you can add lots more light than is needed by a "starlight" cam unless the firmware is completely useless. With a 4mp sensor and a night image that clean, that Reolink was running a seriously slooooow shutter speed in that video.

I've got one of the Dahua starlight varifocal turrets watching my car. I still need to force it to 1/60th at night to speed up the shutter a bit for my liking for the given lighting but it'll do auto in the day and it's smart enough to freeze passing cars on the road behind it on a cloudy day. The cheapo Dahuas and other cams set to auto generally require full sunlight to freeze a vehicle unless you manually force them to 1/500 or faster. The default noise reduction on the starlight was too aggressive though so I turned it down to help give more detail on moving targets. You know SOMETHING is set wrong for moving targets even with a good cam when the background is nice and sharp at night unless you have TONS of light.
 
Yea I played around with it having my son run around and jump. seems like i found a sweet spot for it. Seem a little choppy though but still captures the person fine. I have it set Direct to disk for my NAS with the Red drives in it. It is only chopping on the BI software as the recording on the Reolink itself is fine. I did an export from BI and the video is still choppy but not bad enough to warrant messing with it.

Thanks for all the help!
 
No troubles. Reolink doesn't quite do h.264 properly so programs like BI that expect proper P and I frames don't get what they should so the video suffers. It's a known issue that Reolink has so far refused to fix, probably because their non-standard implementation will cause problems with some of their stuff on their end. IIRC, their reason was because fixing it and making it compliant will cause problems with "some users".
 
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