IPC-HFW5231E-Z12 LPR from 137 feet

bigredfish said:
Unfortunately those settings didnt hold up due to the Dahua focus shift problem when it switched from Day to Night. Which really sucks as it was looking pretty damn good. :angry: Im running on a POE NVR remotely so even if I knew how to implement that code that corrects for this problem (I dont) I dont think that's possible... hmmmmm

So I'm going to have to try a universal full-time setting that will work with both Day and Night.

I dont suppose Dahua has a firmware fix for this PIA yet?
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Super frustrated and disappointed in the 5231Z-12 and Dahua. The focus shift problem from Day-Night really makes this almost useless as an LPR cam without being able to run a 3rd party script. (With a POE NVR and it being remote, this isnt an option)

You shouldnt have to run a 3rd party script to fix what is a $200 and otherwise awesome camera. If I dont find a solution I'm going to be shipping it back to Andy @EMPIRETECANDY and go back to using the Axis camera that was in place. At least the Axis doesn't lose focus between night and day.
 
bigredfish said:
Super frustrated and disappointed in the 5231Z-12 and Dahua. The focus shift problem from Day-Night really makes this almost useless as an LPR cam without being able to run a 3rd party script. (With a POE NVR and it being remote, this isnt an option)

You shouldnt have to run a 3rd party script to fix what is a $200 and otherwise awesome camera. If I dont find a solution I'm going to be shipping it back to Andy @EMPIRETECANDY and go back to using the Axis camera that was in place. At least the Axis doesn't lose focus between night and day.
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Yea, it's too bad that it refocuses. You can always leave it in nighttime (B/W) configuration but of course you can't tell what color the cars are.
 
You can adapt a raspberry pi to run a simple script to take care of the day/night profile change and manual focus. I did a small prof of concept for this when I got a neighbor one of these cameras. He was running just a NVR. We never put it in place because he wasn't having any issues. I had it coded up for day/night change and we should be able to add the focus cmds easily.
 
Ive got an 8231 Starlight doing overview duty in this same location which i keep in forced color 24/7 so vehicle color not an issue.

For now the only way I found to keep it from losing focus is to set in to "Normal" profile, which uses the same settings for day/night. Downside is I have to live with one set of settings for both.

I set it last night at 1/500, Iris 30, gain 0-40 and Forced B&W. It did pretty well at night, and so far on an overcast day it's doing reasonably well in daytime. I think if the sun was out I'd have problems so may try 1/1000
 
Unfortunately its a POE NVR so not even sure I could get the script to execute using the pi...you can access the camera GUI once logged into the NVR, from the NVR interface, but it assigns a random 10.x IP and port...
 
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On the bright side I will save $400+ by using the existing AXIS cams doing LPR at the other pole at the entrance and not buying 2 more Z-12's ;)
 
You should be able to plug the Pi into a Poe port of the NVR, if there is a spare. Once it's running on the NVR's camera side network it wouldn't have any problem talking directly to the camera. It's not an ideal solution by any means, but technically possible.
 
Thanks @kheiney ! I'll see how the single setting works out today/tonight and then perhaps give that a try. Appreciate your help.
 
Does anyone know if the Z12E has the same focus issue as the Z12 discussed here? I was about to buy a Z12E to try out the LPR but maybe I need to look at other options if it has the same issues.
Is the issue only occurring with the day\night profile switch over or does it occur any time the camera switches from color to B&W IR every morning and night?
 
I ran a 'Schedule" profile with separate Day/Night settings for Exposure but forcing both to stay in B&W, SmartIR set to ON, for both the past 24 hours and didnt experience the focus shift. So it seems to be directly related to the IR cut filter switching which throws off the focus.

I'll do some more tweaking tonight but it looks promising.
 
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bigredfish said:
I ran a 'Schedule" profile with separate Day/Night settings for Exposure but forcing both to stay in B&W, SmartIR set to ON, for both the past 24 hours and didnt experience the focus shift. So it seems to be directly related to the IR cut filter switching which throws off the focus.

I'll do some more tweaking tonight but it looks promising.
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Power loss causes it to happen too.
 
bigredfish said:
Super frustrated and disappointed in the 5231Z-12 and Dahua. The focus shift problem from Day-Night really makes this almost useless as an LPR cam without being able to run a 3rd party script. (With a POE NVR and it being remote, this isnt an option)

You shouldnt have to run a 3rd party script to fix what is a $200 and otherwise awesome camera. If I dont find a solution I'm going to be shipping it back to Andy @EMPIRETECANDY and go back to using the Axis camera that was in place. At least the Axis doesn't lose focus between night and day.
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What is there to fix? The camera isn't designed to be an LPR camera. For the price, it does do a reasonably good job at it. Any auto focus camera is going to have issues trying to focus in low to no light situations. Don't make Andy pay for your mistake because you didn't buy an official LPR camera. He even says it's not designed for it.

I'm able to get the focus right using an external script based on sunset and sunrise as well as a couple hours after sunrise and before sunset when it's a little lighter outside.
 
I understand its not designated an LPR camera. But it wouldnt matter if I was using it for that or for watching a stationary plant in the backyard. If it looses focus as bad as it does each day between day and night it has a problem.

As mentioned, we also have 5 year old Axis cameras pulling LPR duty at the opposite end of the street that work just fine, they aren't designated 'LPR" cameras either.

I have plenty of other Dahua cameras that DONT do this, at least not to the degree this one does as to be un-usable, including a couple of Dahua 82XX series.

I said nothing about penalizing Andy, he's a good guy and its not his fault.
 
The funny thing is a simple fix IMOP would be to have a setting thay allows you to set, and dissable autofocus.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk
 
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bigredfish said:
I understand its not designated an LPR camera. But it wouldnt matter if I was using it for that or for watching a stationary plant in the backyard. If it looses focus as bad as it does each day between day and night it has a problem.

As mentioned, we also have 5 year old Axis cameras pulling LPR duty at the opposite end of the street that work just fine, they aren't designated 'LPR" cameras either.

I have plenty of other Dahua cameras that DONT do this, at least not to the degree this one does as to be un-usable, including a couple of Dahua 82XX series.

I said nothing about penalizing Andy, he's a good guy and its not his fault.
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What model Axis cameras? Maybe I'll search eBay for a deal on those used vs. a new Z12E if they work well enough for LPR.
 
Look up the shipping price and you won't be sending it back.
 
Ha! Right you are :(
I guess it will pull overwatch duty in a non-essential spot.

I already have the Axis cams, they are older 1354, 1364, and 1365 models in weatherproof housings. Two have 60mm lenses. None have IR so you have to provide external IR, and they are finicky with a very different set of settings than the Dahua cams, but the optics in them work very well once you get them dialed in. They were installed before I knew what was what 3 years ago for the HOA at either end of the street.

See my project here:
Gonna need a little help...
 
Thank you OP for showing me lovely pics. I was just getting ready to order all my cams from Andy and I now I gots to upgrade to the lovely bullet cam with incredible range and starlight mode. Oh well, it's only money :)
 
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PoeNoPoe said:
Thank you OP for showing me lovely pics. I was just getting ready to order all my cams from Andy and I now I gots to upgrade to the lovely bullet cam with incredible range and starlight mode. Oh well, it's only money :)
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Just be aware that the IPC-HFW5231E-Z12 has an auto-focus problem when the IR is activated or deactivated.
 
crc2004 said:
Just be aware that the IPC-HFW5231E-Z12 has an auto-focus problem when the IR is activated or deactivated.
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Hmm...Camera switching from day to night mode (IR On/OFF) & camera loses ability to auto focus?

If so I hope they fix that in a firmware update
 
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