Looking Out
Pulling my weight
I could use some help with settings.
Did this prowler see my camera?
- Thread starter Looking Out
- Start date
I could use some help with settings.
Flintstone61
Known around here
yeah Baby!
I would say yes your camera did part of its job and acted as a deterrent!
Yeah the image needs some work:
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.
But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start, along with 15 FPS and 15 i-frame.
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 the image needs some work:
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.
But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start, along with 15 FPS and 15 i-frame.
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.
Looking Out
Pulling my weight
@Mike A. This was on my 5442T-ZE Vari-focal. I have it zoomed 100% so the distance to the target as he hugs the treeline is ~40 feet. I should have recorded my original settings because as soon as I saw this clip I started changing everything. I'm going to start with the guidance from @wittaj and probably start a dedicated thread and link to it so that it's easier for others to find and reference.
J Sigmo
Known around here
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Something that is always a problem with any auto-exposure system is bright highlights being "preserved" by the system. In this case, the reflection from the reflector on the car is fooling the auto exposure into making the entire image too dark as it tries to "preserve the highlights".
If there are some different settings for how the autoexposure system meters the scene, you may get some improvement by trying different settings there. But what is really needed is a setting that we can adjust that allows for small highlights to be "blown out" for the sake of the overall image.
Meanwhile, something that helps with the reflector problem is to use a separate off-camera IR illuminator placed well away from the camera. That way, retroreflectors will send their reflected light back at the illuminator instead of right back at the camera. That's a problem with any camera that has a built-in IR illuminator. It's a lot like on-camera flash giving you "red eye" in the photos. You'll also want to disable the in-camera IR if you do go with an external illuminator.
If there are some different settings for how the autoexposure system meters the scene, you may get some improvement by trying different settings there. But what is really needed is a setting that we can adjust that allows for small highlights to be "blown out" for the sake of the overall image.
Meanwhile, something that helps with the reflector problem is to use a separate off-camera IR illuminator placed well away from the camera. That way, retroreflectors will send their reflected light back at the illuminator instead of right back at the camera. That's a problem with any camera that has a built-in IR illuminator. It's a lot like on-camera flash giving you "red eye" in the photos. You'll also want to disable the in-camera IR if you do go with an external illuminator.
Looking Out
Pulling my weight
I've started another thread regarding image improvement for the 5442T-ZE at night.
ipcamtalk.com
Improving 5442T-ZE Images, primarily at night
I had a prowler recently that hugged the far treeline of my property. Luckily the IVS still triggered but the image and video left room for improvement. I started a thread on that event here: Did this prowler see my camera? Based on the feedback in the above thread from @wittaj I am...
spammenotinoz
Getting comfortable
I have two of these and the IR range is to short to work properly with zoom at night. If you require MAX zoom get external ir at an angle.
BTW, lower the frame rate = more detail. From a bit rate perspective these go as high as 20480 and sometimes they need it to avoid blur on high action scenes.
I use mine of H.265 so I can bring the bitrate down to a more sensible 10,000. Despite not being 4k, they can get a lot of detail!!