Different Day/Night parameter sets (DS-2CD2142FWD-I)

[RabenFlug]

Dear community,
I hope that you won't kill me for that easy? question, but I did not find a clear answer to my question searching the forum...
My DS-2CD2142FWD-I has got a day/night mode, that's fine! In night mode the picture turns to B/W, also fine.
But the camera seems to use the same settings (exposure time, grightnes, contrast, ...) for both modes. When I optimize it on the day, it's to dark for the night mode. Optimized in night mode, it's over-exposured on the day.
What did I do wrong? Is there a way to provide two different parameter sets for both operation modes?

Many regards
Chris

 

[aster1x]

You have done nothing wrong!!! It is not possible to have different image (and/or video) settings for day and night switched automatically according to the camera light sensor that switches the camera between day and night mode. In fact the only thing that changes between day and night is the activation of the ... infrared LEDs!!!

However there is an expert mode that you can have different image settings for day and night mode, but then you must define the time of the day that camera will switch between day and night modes. This may not be the best way of switching since the daylight time changes over time.

I have talked to several HIK representatives and they do not believe that such firmware functionality would be useful in order to devote development effort!!!

Thy only thing you can do is add extra light for the night mode in such a way that the camera never switches to night mode and then adjust the image settings for the best (probably compromised) image quality between the two modes with the same image settings. If you cannot add extra light then what you are looking for s not possible with the economy range 2 of HIK cameras. Optionally you may switch to the more expensive series 4 cameras which have more sensitive sensors.

 

[LaurentR]

I use the turret version of that cam (2CD2342WD, also 4MP) and I also wish the setting switch could be trigger by the change between night and day mode.
A few thoughts that may help:
* If you have exposure issues across modes, you should start with the BLC setting. Pick a part of the scene that does not contain lights, is not directly exposed to the sun and is not too dark or light in color, then create a "custom BLC" rectangle around it. This will make sure that that object is always well exposed. I found that this is the best setting for indoor cams and it works well day and night.
* I you have scenes that need WDR (e.g. sunlit areas, either outdoor or partially indoor/outdoor), things get tricky. WDR will get you reasonable exposure of everything, but not always exactly what you want. You'll have to play with the WDR setting across scenarios (day, night, sun...) to find a good compromise setting. One thing that annoys me on that cam is that in WDR mode in night mode, the image is somewhat blurry, so you may want to turn WDR off at night (some Hiks have an auto WDR mode, but not this one - at least not my turret version with 5.3.8).

At the end of the day I use 2 different settings across cameras depending on the use case:
* Fully indoor, no/little sun: use BLC night/day. No scheduled setting switch. Auto night/day.
* Partial indoor/outdoor with sun-lit areas during the day: Used scheduled setting switch. Use WDR during the day to deal with sun-lit areas. Use BLC at night (no sun-lit areas to deal with, better night-mode sharpness, better exposure control). Auto night/day. I run a daily script on my NAS to adjust the setting switch schedule based on sunrise/set time, but that's gravy.

 

[pepperfr]

Chris, you may have to look outside of the camera to accomplish what you desire. I have created batch scripts to modify my day and night image settings on my Hiks. I use Blue Iris to execute the scripts automatically at dawn and dusk. Check out this thread:
https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/8415-Camera-Event-Scheduler-to-Run-Program-or-Execute-Script

 

[RabenFlug]

LaurentR, thanks alot for your hint with the BLC setting, that was a very good point and works perfect on my actual "Day" image. I've seen the BLC feature and read the manual, but it doesn't clearly explain how to use it like you did.
I use the camera outdoor. Even if there is a mix of sunshine/dark areas in my camera image, the BLC setting makes the image much, much better in my relevant area. Thanks!!!

mcx, pepperfr, changing the settings by script seems to be a sexy way to bypass the software limitations. I will try this, if the BLC setting does not solve the problem in night mode for me. Have to wait for the night to test it Thanks for the perfect manual, man!

 

[LaurentR]

No problem. I struggled quite a bit with this recently and through a lot of experimentation figured out how to best use BLC and WDR. "BLC" is atrociously named, as the feature does not do BLC at all, instead it is a pure exposure metering setting as you may find in a DSLR. I find that when you do not need the dynamic range of WDR, BLC is superior, as it lets you actually control the exposure.

For outdoor, I have a camera that uses a big patch of road as a BLC custom area. It's grayish with and without IR cut, so it works well. When using a specific object for BLC, one of the surprises of night BLC is that some objects are much lighter/darker without the IR cut filter, which can throw off the scene exposure if that object is used for BLC.