Help with image adjustment at night

[Chokolinho]

Hello,
I replaced my 3849R1-S5 with a HDBW5442H-ZHE Wizmind-S camera today. What do you think of my camera settings? What can or should I improve? I would appreciate any help.

 

[bigredfish]

Depends on your goals.

For seeing someone or a vehicle in the street under the streetlight it’s ok but lacks zoom

Shutter probably needs to be faster, 0-8 up to 0-12 to reduce motion blur.

For people walking toward the camera, they will be backlit and very dark.

Without more light at or behind the camera facing out, I would recommend running black n white with IR

 

[bigredfish]

Show us a video of walking line you want to capture. Static images don’t tell much

 

[bigredfish]

To see both the drive/street area and the walkway towards the camera you have the wrong camera. I would use the 3449 Pro with motion activated white lights
OR possible the 4K-T but even with that you'll have to have the white LEDs on all night

 

[Chokolinho]

Show us a video of walking line you wa t to capture. Static images don’t tell much

These two paths are important to me.

 

[bigredfish]

You don't have enough light.

It takes a LOT of light to run color at night, even with a 5442

Either add light or run in IR mode

 

[steve1225]

You don't have enough light.

It takes a LOT of light to run color at night, even with a 5442

Either add light or run in IR mode

^ this

 

[Chokolinho]

^ this

what is the maximum aperture I can set at night? this is 100%.

 

[bigredfish]

No rule against that. Test it by walking from far directly towards the camera. Show video

 

[wittaj]

100% aperture won't help you.

As others have said, more light or infrared.

Your light is behind the subjects, so it will always be a black/dark face.

The light needs to be on the same plane or behind the camera if you expect to get any good images of faces.

 

[Chokolinho]

100% aperture won't help you.

As others have said, more light or infrared.

Your light is behind the subjects, so it will always be a black/dark face.

The light needs to be on the same plane or behind the camera if you expect to get any good images of faces.

IR looks light that.

 

[wittaj]

A lot of IR bounce off the house. You would angle it to minimize that as all that IR bounce is impacting the exposure.

But even if you don't move it you will have better success than the color.

NR needs to be dropped lower. Try for no more than 42 or so.

Gain should really not be above 60 or so.

 

[Chokolinho]

A lot of IR bounce off the house. You would angle it to minimize that as all that IR bounce is impacting the exposure.

But even if you don't move it you will have better success than the color.

NR needs to be dropped lower. Try for no more than 42 or so.

Gain should really not be above 60 or so.

I'm sure you mean that I should turn the camera further to the right or so that the deflection is not so strong? The most I can set before it gets too dark is 10 shutter and 60 gain.

 

[wittaj]

Yes turn it further right if you can to help with the deflection of the infrared.

The IR bounce isn't as bad as some others we have seen, but it will certainly help.

The problem with too much gain is that it gives a brighter image, but then creates ghosting of motion and negates the faster shutter.

 

[Heavyopp]

A lot of IR bounce off the house. You would angle it to minimize that as all that IR bounce is impacting the exposure.

But even if you don't move it you will have better success than the color.

NR needs to be dropped lower. Try for no more than 42 or so.

Gain should really not be above 60 or so.

Just for an education - which noise reduction should not be above 42 2d,3d or both. Is this a general rule for all cameras or just this particular situation?

 

[bigredfish]

Both
And before you get too far, speed up Exposure, you'll just have a big blur

Try 0-8 and go up from there to 0-9 etc. It will get darker, but you'll reduce blur and can compensate with gain somewhat.

 

[wittaj]

Just for an education - which noise reduction should not be above 42 2d,3d or both. Is this a general rule for all cameras or just this particular situation?

Noise Reduction is used to take out the "speckles" or dots you see dancing around in lower light settings.

But the higher the NR, the more blur that happens with motion.

And what happens is too many people run NR too high because they are only considering the static image they are looking at when they are adjusting settings.

In theory, 2D is for the static not in motion parts of the image, and 3D is for the objects in motion.

So in theory, you could run 2D a lot higher and 3D lower, but in reality, that just causes issues with a "halo" effect around the motion.

So I start every camera with the settings for 2D and 3D the same. Then I will try the 2D higher and see what happens.

My Z12E-S3 is the only one that I can run a higher 2D on. All my other cameras they work best with the numbers the same.

My PTZs I run a lower NR because when the camera is tracking, a higher NR can really bring out the blur.

While I love the look of a higher NR static image without all the dancing specs, it is hard to get clean captures that way of an object in motion, so I probably run NR a little lower than most people would. I figure I can always denoise an image after the fact easier than you can detail a blur after the fact.

 

[Heavyopp]

I can say that I’ve never touched the noise reduction on any of my cams. They’re all at the default 50%. Never really knew what it did.

 

[bigredfish]

You should try and play with them.
Basically the lower you can go the less motion blur. But at some point the noise is too great to live with. 50 is MAX

 

[wittaj]

Yeah 50 during the day is way too much. You can practically turn it off during the day, although I don't because dawn/dusk and really cloudy days will wreak havoc, but most of mine are around 20 in the day.