bigredfish
Known around here
Thank you, I may, but it needs to be above 80 degrees - 26.6 C 
[Discussion] Looking for better camera at night, livingroom
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Young grasshopper
Still like 16 give or take to goThank you, I may, but it needs to be above 80 degrees - 26.6 C
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Young grasshopper
But what you said about the D2 and focus distance? Isnt that a problem then? I noticed there is an D2 2.8 and 3.6mm
I can only buy the here:
Dahua IPC-HDW5449TM-SE-LED
Dahua IPC-HDW5449H-ASE-D2 (2.8/3.6) here.
The ZE i haven't found so far here in the normal-ish camera shops.
bigredfish
Known around here
No do not buy the D2
Use one of the other two I linked
Use one of the other two I linked
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
You can contact our trusted vendor @EMPIRETECANDY to get those cameras.
He ships all over the world on a regular basis.
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Young grasshopper
Sir, YES SIR!
Ok will not buy the D2 for this use case
Would like to talk about more stuff like shutter (this one not so much), gain , grade, contrast/brightness etc. in the dark and during the day. Will open a new topic for that.
This is your thread, so no need to open another thread.
In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.
Start with:
H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes
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.
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. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.
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.
In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.
Start with:
H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes
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.
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. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.
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.
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Young grasshopper
I thought difference subject so different topic to keep the forum readable. But fine of course.
Yes i have found that explaination before (thanks!) But there are a few more options i would like to know more about. But for now i first need to get the new camera and hang it
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Young grasshopper
Hahaha ok ok
Well i will make a complete list but stuff like:
- Vidid / normal Colors
- brightness/contrast etc. You said something about it but isn't there like a best practice standard settings for that complete settings page? (So for all the options)
- BLC/WDR etc. I can look at what they do but you can also adjust them. So what do you guys normally do?
Best to just stay with normal. Vivid plays with the other parameters that you can simply do yourself by upping saturation, etc.
What I posted is basically the "best practices" LOL. If no comment was made on a parameter, then staying at the default 50 is good for most people for things like saturation. But if the color is "off" to you then adjust it until the grass is the color you think it is as an example. Every scene is different. Even two exact model cameras bought at the same time with one on either side of a garage door looking at essentially the same field of view can result in drastically different numbers.
Yes you can can change BLC/WDR, but as my wall of text says, it is best to try every other option first and only use backlight as a last resort and then at that keep it as low as possible. Backlight takes multiple pictures at the same time with different settings and blends them together, so it can result in a dark shadow area looking great, but then motion can be a blur. And they should be avoided using them at night.
What I posted is basically the "best practices" LOL. If no comment was made on a parameter, then staying at the default 50 is good for most people for things like saturation. But if the color is "off" to you then adjust it until the grass is the color you think it is as an example. Every scene is different. Even two exact model cameras bought at the same time with one on either side of a garage door looking at essentially the same field of view can result in drastically different numbers.
Yes you can can change BLC/WDR, but as my wall of text says, it is best to try every other option first and only use backlight as a last resort and then at that keep it as low as possible. Backlight takes multiple pictures at the same time with different settings and blends them together, so it can result in a dark shadow area looking great, but then motion can be a blur. And they should be avoided using them at night.
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Young grasshopper
You really have an answer for every option
very nice / cool! Kudos 2 you.Operations
Young grasshopper
Yes that is of course true
I don't mind tuning it but when it is good, i dont really touch it anymore. But maybe i will replace more of my cameras and i will ask here again
I have got 2 sd-1404 gnr something like that, they also not super in the dark. Maybe replace them with 5442's. Question will be which one then hahahah
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Young grasshopper
Ok one more, what do you do with IR option? Smart IR or... ?
Depends on the field of view. If the subject is going to be 15 feet away or more, I prefer to put IR on manual and blast as much IR as possible.
If the subject is going to get within 15 feet of the camera, smart IR can reduce/eliminate the washed out/white out conditions of a face. But it is best to try both ways and see which works best for the field of view. I don't use smart IR on any of my cams.
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Young grasshopper
I assume IR doesn't do anything for color at night... right?
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Young grasshopper
You agree with the advice for me to not buy the D2 but the IPC-HDW5449TM-SE-LED ?