Domes and IR reflections

[Povl H. Pedersen]

I have some reflections from my dome cams (4433), which is pretty bad. Hangs in carport close to a wall. Left side looks along a wall, so might get some secondary reflections there but wall is matte black.

Some people talk about a foam ring. I have not seen such a thing with my cam. There is some rubber around the lense as can be seen on the attached photo. Do I need to do something further ? Can I do something further ?

This is a 4Mpix cam sold by the Chinese as starlight. It has a good picture at low light, but it is frozen, even the noise, so it looks like it is cheating and using very long exposure to faike starlight.

Another question, between the 2x IR lights (with diffuser lens in front) there is what looks like a small 5mm wide lens/LED of some type. Any idea what that is ?

 

[mat200]

I have some reflections from my dome cams (4433), which is pretty bad. Hangs in carport close to a wall. Left side looks along a wall, so might get some secondary reflections there but wall is matte black.

Some people talk about a foam ring. I have not seen such a thing with my cam. There is some rubber around the lense as can be seen on the attached photo. Do I need to do something further ? Can I do something further ?

This is a 4Mpix cam sold by the Chinese as starlight. It has a good picture at low light, but it is frozen, even the noise, so it looks like it is cheating and using very long exposure to faike starlight.

Another question, between the 2x IR lights (with diffuser lens in front) there is what looks like a small 5mm wide lens/LED of some type. Any idea what that is ?

Hi Povl,

4mp - I would think it's really not a proper Dahua starlight - numerous vendors are a bit dishonest / loose about the term to make sales.

The rubber ring in this case would serve the same purpose as the mentioned foam ring around other models.

Try to clean the dome and the ring and check for a good fit.

 

[fenderman]

As noted that is not a starlight camera...

 

[aristobrat]

You may also be able to reduce the glare a bit by manually adjusting the IR level via the camera's webui.

 

[Povl H. Pedersen]

I know it is not starlight, but I am surprised how well it works in visible light, and the no video noise just tells me, it is faking it. Switching off IR, it takes like 10 seconds for it to get full exposure of the image. So it likely does 10s exposures to fake things. Not sure if detection/IVS works reliable in that mode. You can get any camera to make a nice well lit picture with long enough exposure.

I have the area covered by a floodlight on PIR as well, so it might work without the IR. My 2nd camera will not have PIR light. Have to look at the rubber ring again. And make sure everything on the side with most IR is painted black (there is natural unpainted wood close by).

 

[aristobrat]

and the no video noise just tells me, it is faking it

FWIW, real Starlights have no noise on video during low-light, and they can do that with a shutter speed of 1/25. But... they're not 4MP, and they're probably nowhere as cheap as the Chinese one you're playing with.

 

[looney2ns]

I have some reflections from my dome cams (4433), which is pretty bad. Hangs in carport close to a wall. Left side looks along a wall, so might get some secondary reflections there but wall is matte black.

Some people talk about a foam ring. I have not seen such a thing with my cam. There is some rubber around the lense as can be seen on the attached photo. Do I need to do something further ? Can I do something further ?

This is a 4Mpix cam sold by the Chinese as starlight. It has a good picture at low light, but it is frozen, even the noise, so it looks like it is cheating and using very long exposure to faike starlight.

Another question, between the 2x IR lights (with diffuser lens in front) there is what looks like a small 5mm wide lens/LED of some type. Any idea what that is ?

This is exactly one of the numerous pitfalls of using a dome. Slightest reflection at the right angle, can mess up the pic.