Dahau varifocal cam goes out of focus (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE)

[Sybertiger]

Anyone ever have an issue where their varifocal camera goes out of focus on its own?

I have a fairly new IPC-HDW5231R-ZE that'll decide on its own to change the focus in the middle of the night. I logged into the camera settings (Dahau Config Tool - Browser) and noted the camera is still fully zoomed out but the focus is not where I left it. And, when you click the auto focus button the camera thinks the focal point is way off where it should be. I had thought the auto focus was a "one time" focus button rather than a "focus when the camera feels like it" deal. I see no enable/disable auto focus check box so I'm assuming it is "one time" click it auto focus.

Click on Auto Focus

Completion of Auto Focus

Manually set the focus although Auto Focus used to perform this function flawlessly...and, in the middle of the night the camera decides to change the focal point such that it's out of focus.

 

[alastairstevenson]

in the middle of the night the camera decides to change the focal point such that it's out of focus.

Have you configured any external access to the camera from the internet, eg 'port forwarding' ?

 

[Sybertiger]

Have you configured any external access to the camera from the internet, eg 'port forwarding' ?

I don't have any ports fowarded. I should have provided specifics on my setup which I will do now:

Cameras are connected to a POE switch. POE switch connects to a BI server on a dedicated NIC (198.168.0.X) and this NIC is not setup to have access to a gateway.
BI server connects to the LAN via another NIC (198.168.1.X) and it has access to the LAN gateway.
Router/gateway has OpenVPN enabled. No ports forwarded...no UPnP, etc.​

In other words, this is not likely hackers, etc. getting into the network. I note that when I found the camera out of focus I logged into the camera's Zoom and Focus settings then clicked the Auto Focus button and the result was the second picture above...the auto focus feature simply was "broken". I rebooted the camera and now the Auto Focus is working as expected. I'm just curious to know if anyone else has observed their camera either going out of focus on its own and/or the Auto Focus button/feature failing to work correctly when you click on it. And, I assume that "auto focus" is not active if the camera is not zooming in/out.

 

[pmcross]

I don't have any ports fowarded. I should have provided specifics on my setup which I will do now:

Cameras are connected to a POE switch. POE switch connects to a BI server on a dedicated NIC (198.168.0.X) and this NIC is not setup to have access to a gateway.
BI server connects to the LAN via another NIC (198.168.1.X) and it has access to the LAN gateway.
Router/gateway has OpenVPN enabled. No ports forwarded...no UPnP, etc.​

In other words, this is not likely hackers, etc. getting into the network. I note that when I found the camera out of focus I logged into the camera's Zoom and Focus settings then clicked the Auto Focus button and the result was the second picture above...the auto focus feature simply was "broken". I rebooted the camera and now the Auto Focus is working as expected. I'm just curious to know if anyone else has observed their camera either going out of focus on its own and/or the Auto Focus button/feature failing to work correctly when you click on it. And, I assume that "auto focus" is not active if the camera is not zooming in/out.

I had this happen to one of my Amcrest varifocal cameras. I had BI trigger a zoom and focus of the camera at night and then zoom back out in the morning. I noticed that many times I'd have to click restore defaults in order for it to focus properly. Also I had to have BI send two commands to zoom/focus. I've also encountered where it focuses and then after a few minutes the focus becomes skewed and the camera is out of focus. This was usually fixed by running an auto focus. It seems like a firmware bug to me.

 

[aristobrat]

I think Dahuas may try to refocus when switching from color to b/w mode. One workaround is to run the DahuaSunriseSunset tool that one of the forum admins here wrote.

It can switch your Dahuas between day/night profiles based on sunrise/sunset time. It can also send a command to zoom and focus the cameras to preset values so you don’t have to mess with it trying to autofocus and maybe land out of focus.

The nice thing about it switching profiles (vs the camera staying on the same profile and flipping between color and b/w) is that you can have different camera settings for the day profile vs the night profile. I have the night profile on a few of my cameras force set to b/w mode (so the cam won’t try to flip to color mode at night if porch lights come on) and I have the shutter rate increased at night to help reduce motion blur.

 

[Sybertiger]

I think Dahuas may try to refocus when switching from color to b/w mode. One workaround is to run the DahuaSunriseSunset tool that one of the forum admins here wrote.

It can switch your Dahuas between day/night profiles based on sunrise/sunset time. It can also send a command to zoom and focus the cameras to preset values so you don’t have to mess with it trying to autofocus and maybe land out of focus.

The nice thing about it switching profiles (vs the camera staying on the same profile and flipping between color and b/w) is that you can have different camera settings for the day profile vs the night profile. I have the night profile on a few of my cameras force set to b/w mode (so the cam won’t try to flip to color mode at night if porch lights come on) and I have the shutter rate increased at night to help reduce motion blur.

I went back and looked at the footage when the camera went out out of focus. It started raining about 3am and I had thought maybe water got into the camera or maybe water on the lens cover made it decide to refocus. But when I looked at the footage nothing exciting was going on at 12:52am (not raining yet, no headlights, no lightning flashes....just nothing) when the problem occurred. I did look at the status log and noted that at this same time I had logged out of the BI app I had up on my mobile phone while in bed. I'm wondering if I accidently tapped on the zoom out button and the camera (I do see it zoom out VERY slightly then it goes out of focus) was unable to focus correctly because it was at night.

The footage shows the camera flips to color at 6:30am but the focus doesn't change or correct. Weird that I logged directly into the camera and hit the autofocus button and it did everything but focus...LOL.

I currently have a daytime and nighttime profile for trigger events (because of headlights from cars). Nighttime starts at 10 minutes after sunset and end 10 minutes before sunrise and the profile selector is the BI built-in schedule (Options > Schedule). Where do I find the setting to control shutter rate during the nighttime profile?

I take it that DahuaSunriseSunset is completely independent of the BI profile scheduler? Without having spent a lot of time reading all the threads on this topic it's not clear to me yet.

 

[Sybertiger]

Oh, I see...we are talking about the ability to control all the nitty gritty settings on individual cameras independent of BI. BI is simply going to get what the cameras decide to give it and when they decide to give it and change their settings regardless of BI.

 

[looney2ns]

The varifocals are not intended to be used in such manner. The FOV is to be set at install time, then left alone.

 

[Sybertiger]

The varifocals are not intended to be used in such manner. The FOV is to be set at install time, then left alone.

And this is why I had assumed that the Auto Focus capability was not active unless you manually clicked the button. Also you'd think there would be a way to prevent the zoom from being activated like I apparently accidently did when I had the BI app open....too easy to accidently touch the zoom on the app. And, the worst thing is it messes up your zone maps you spend so much time trying to get right.

 

[looney2ns]

And this is why I had assumed that the Auto Focus capability was not active unless you manually clicked the button. Also you'd think there would be a way to prevent the zoom from being activated like I apparently accidently did when I had the BI app open....too easy to accidently touch the zoom on the app. And, the worst thing is it messes up your zone maps you spend so much time trying to get right.

Disable PTZ for that cam in BI to prevent that.

 

[Sybertiger]

Disable PTZ for that cam in BI to prevent that.

Because I don't have "PTZ" cams per se I never looked at that tab until now...THANKS!

 

[pmcross]

The varifocals are not intended to be used in such manner. The FOV is to be set at install time, then left alone.

I used the zoom in/out as a temporary solution. For reference, you can call the auto focus command from BI using http://IPAddress/cgi-bin/devVideoInput.cgi?action=autoFocus