Thank you for always sharing the images and videos of these new cameras reviews with us. It's nice to see and learn about the more high-end Axis cameras and comparing the image quality with the Dahua and hikvision cameras that we usually have here.
Really appreciate you and tech101 always leading the way with these big ticket cameras and providing nice eye candy for us. As for the question of is it worth 2k to the average person, the Axis Q1808-LE image quality is good but not $2K good to me. The max I'm willing to spend for that image quality is $500-$600 range. If I'm spending 2K on a camera I might as well buy the Dahua PTZ4K45X-AI.
In my opinion, the Q1808-LE is not a good representation of Axis cameras in both image quality and image processing. I'm hopeful that a software update will improve its performance. One of the main advantages to Axis cameras in regards to image quality is the really good image processing of scenes that have bright and dark spots. Example would be a store front where the camera is pointed to a full glass entrance and the sun is shinning brightly outside. The Axis cameras can process the scene and provide a clear balanced view inside the building and outside while still being able to provide an ID on a face. Another example would be a spot light shining on a person at night. The Axis cameras will process the image and provide a good face ID even with the light shinning on them. I would have to do a ton of fine tuning with my Dahua cameras to eliminate the overexposure and still not get as good of results. A lot of the other features and cybersecurity compliance doesn't really have an advantage for your average homeowner.
I uploaded videos to YouTube of two of my Axis Cameras.
Driveway camera is a P1468-LE running at default settings except using the Vivid profile and the exposure was set to 1/120. The Driveway camera has a 60 watt LED spotlight for illumination and the camera is zoomed in about 15%
Front Door camera is a Q3538-LVE dome running at default settings except using the Vivid profile and the exposure was set to 1/100. The illumination for this camera is only the white LED's on a Dahua 4K-T mounted to the top left of the camera and two 15 watt CFL's ceiling mounted out of the field of view. I have a 100watt LED light for the front porch but that was turned off because it was attracting too many bugs.
You can see the bitrate of each camera by the bitrate overlay on the bottom right of the video.
Night time video of P1468-LE with delivery driver jogging through the scene
Night time video of P1468-LE with license plate and high beams shining into the camera.
Night time video of Q3538-LVE
Daytime video of Q3538-LVE
The quality of the front door camera is better when I have the 100w led bulb on. If there's interest I can post a video of that when I get one available. I haven't really spent much time trying to fine tune these cameras so they're pretty much at the default. The purpose of the driveway camera is to ID someone who goes by the vehicles. It is not intended to view the street or another area. The purpose of the front door camera is only to ID someone who comes to the front door, I'm not tryin to use it as an overview.