Good camera settings for night time recording? and avoiding noise motion triggers?

icerabbit

Getting the hang of it
Apr 14, 2014
583
74
FL <~> ME
My DS-2CD2032-I arrived today.

First night. Stuck the camera out the window. I'm still trying to figure certain things out (like why live viewing in my browser lags so much on a mac ... 15 fps is like one frame every 2 secs!). One of the things that's really noticeable at night is the black/grey video noise. They had the gain all the way up, turned that down a fair ways which helped considerably, played around with some other settings too. But I don't know that can tweak it enough, that it isn't going to be detecting the noise as motion. Plus the night time video is quite fuzzy. Then when you walk closer towards the camera, the person gets completely washed out until really close to the camera.

I know one can't expect miracles, but I was curious what settings other people may have found to work in a pretty dark area.

The closest area is gently lit by low voltage path lights. Overnight it is pitch black. Motion light is a distance away from the camera. Streetlight is like a little star in the sky (white speck in the distance you could mistake for a dead pixel).
 
How about posting some sample images?


For nights on my 2032 I do the following Configuration

Advanced Configuration
Switch Day an Night: Scheduled-switch
Night Tab
Exposure Settings
Exposure Time 1/12
Gain 100​
BackLight Setting
WDR Off
BLC Area: Right (depends on your image. Mine is darkest on the right, so I use Right to brighten it up.​
Image Enhancement​
Digital Noise Reduction ON
Noise Reduction Level 100


DriveRec.20140428_215438.jpg



 
Turn sharpness way down, like 25 because as all it does is make the noise sharper. Turn gain down a bit. Make sure Smart IR is not checked. I use 1/30th/sec max exposure. WDR off. Noise Reduction at 100 (ironically I turn this off on some cameras because it causes some blurring during the day)
 
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